I've been to my local Barnes & Noble a couple of times this year (I try to stay away because it's such a temptation), and naturally I looked at the new individual covers of The Chronicles of Narnia when I was there. I was able to look at The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (LWW), Prince Caspian (PC), The Horse and His Boy (HHB), The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (VotDT), and The Magician's Nephew (MN). Sadly my B&N didn't have The Silver Chair (SC) or The Last Battle (LB), so I was unable to see those in person.
The new book covers (art by Owen Richardson) look basically just like what you see online. I'm glad I took pictures of the back covers, as the seller websites I looked at don't seem to post them at all. Obviously you can see the full wraparound cover images here.
Remember the planetary symbols that Richardson sneaked into the cover illustrations? The one for LWW is covered up due to how the back of the book is formatted. PC, VotDT, and MN's planetary symbols are on the front covers, so you can still see them if you know what to look for. HHB's is on the back cover, but it escapes being covered up by the other back cover elements. I spent way too long looking for the planetary symbol in LB's cover art before looking at NarniaWeb's answer key (at the link above) and realizing that Richardson just put the literal planet Saturn. 🙄 You can read what I think about the whole Planet Narnia thing here.
Earlier this month I went back to B&N to look at the super expensive deluxe slipcase edition of the TCON omnibus, only to find they don't carry it in-store. I did find the deluxe edition (still hardcover, not slipcover) and was able to hold it in my hot little hands. I like how it looks, especially the holographic-y cover and painted edges. I didn't think to take the slipcover off (I think it does come off), so I wasn't able to look at the pretty wardrobe design under the slipcover.
omnibus sprayed edges
The question is: do I buy the deluxe omnibus ($60-75) since it has the sprayed edges and the pretty wardrobe cover design under the slipcover, which is what I like the most, or do I buy the deluxe slipcase edition omnibus ($150) as it has the nice red velvet slipcover with gold illustrations of Lucy & Tumnus, Aslan's head, and Digory and Polly on pegasus!Fledge, plus the aforementioned painted edges? Do I really want to pay an extra $75 or whatever for a book I'll be hesitant to touch (the spine and slipcover are in red velvet and I cannot touch velvet due to sensory ick)? It's probably not worth it to drop $150 on something I can get most of for $75. If only my Barnes & Noble carried it in person... I would dearly like to look at and touch the deluxe slipcover version. To be quite honest, I don't need another omnibus; I already have 2 paperback ones. I know that if I don't buy one of these, I'll regret it like I regret not getting the Barnes & Noble leatherbound edition omnibus... Ah well, money is made to be spent.
Anyway, you can look at all the current Narnia versions out this year for the 75th anniversary of LWW here: www.narniaweb.com/2025/10/harper-collins-completes-full-catalogue-refresh-for-narnias-75th-anniversary
To read my other Narnia Bloggin' posts, click on the Narnia label at the bottom of this blog post.
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