C. S. Lewis is best known as the author of the seven books that constitute the Chronicles of Narnia series: The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe (1950), Prince Caspian: The Return (1951), The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (1952), The Silver Chair (1953), The Horse and His Boy (1954), The Magician’s Nephew (1955), and The Last Battle (1956). The series centers on the fantasy world of Narnia and the battle between good (represented by the lion Aslan) and evil (symbolized by the White Witch). The books trace the history of Narnia from Aslan’s creation of the world to its destruction when Aslan’s true believers are transported to an eternal paradise.

Once Upon a Wardrobe is set in 1950, two months after The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was first published. In this first Narnia book, siblings Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy Pevensie are evacuated from London to live with a professor during World War II. There, they discover a wardrobe that leads to Narnia, where the White Witch has cast a spell, creating an eternal winter where Christmas never comes.