Grown-ups thought her the pretty one of the family and she was no good at school work(though otherwise very old for her age) and Mother said she"would get far more out of a trip to America than the youngsters".

Edmund and Lucy tried not to grudge Susan her luck, but it was dreadful having to spend the summer holidays at their Aunt's.

"But it's far worse for me, "said Edmund, "because you'll at least have a room of your own and I shall have to share a bedroom with that record stinker, Eustace. " The story begins on an afternoon when Edmund and Lucy were stealing a few precious minutes alone together.

And of course they were talking about Narnia, which was the name of their own private and secret country.

Most of us, I suppose, have a secret country but for most of us it is only an imaginary country.

Edmund and Lucy were luckier than other people in that respect. Their secret country was real.

They had already visited it twice; not in a game or a dream but in reality.

They had got there of course by Magic, which is the only way of getting to Narnia.

And a promise, or very nearly a promise, had been made them in Narnia itself that they would some day get back.

You may imagine that they talked about it a good deal, when they got the chance.