Textual variants in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
Also known as British and American editions of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Dawn Treader edition differences
Lewis revised two portions of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader while correcting the American proofs. This reader defaults to those later revisions while preserving the first British wording here.
This encyclopedia follows the whole story. Plot details from all seven chronicles may appear below.
About Textual variants in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
The first British edition appeared in 1952. When Lewis subsequently read the proofs for the American edition, he made a small revision in Chapter I and a more extensive rewriting at the end of Chapter XII. Pre-1994 American editions retained the revised passages; HarperCollins later standardized editions on the earlier British text.
Further In uses Lewis’s later wording as its default reading text. The quiet “variant” links in the reader lead back to this record of the wording that appeared in the first British edition.
Chapter I: Eustace’s inventiveness
The later American wording softens the narrator’s description without changing the point: Eustace assumes that the Pevensies invented Narnia, although he cannot invent stories himself.
Read Lewis’s later wording in the chapter →
First British edition
He thought of course that they were making it all up; and as he was far too stupid to make anything up himself, he did not approve of that.
Chapter XII: Emerging from the darkness
Lewis replaced the crew’s immediate dismissal and laughter with an extended analogy to the relief of waking from a nightmare. The later version leaves the fear emotionally real even after the ship returns to daylight.
Read Lewis’s later wording in the chapter →
First British edition
And all at once everybody realised that there was nothing to be afraid of and never had been. They blinked their eyes and looked about them. The brightness of the ship herself astonished them: they had half expected to find that the darkness would cling to the white and the green and the gold in the form of some grime or scum. And then first one, and then another, began laughing.
“I reckon we’ve made pretty good fools of ourselves,” said Rynelf.
Chapter XII: Lord Rhoop’s boon
In the later text Rhoop asks that no one question him about his years of nightmares, and Caspian promises that no one will. The first British text instead says that the island has vanished forever.
Read Lewis’s later wording in the chapter →
First British edition
“Never to bring me back there,” he said. He pointed astern. They all looked. But they saw only bright blue sea and bright blue sky. The Dark Island and the darkness had vanished for ever.
“Why!” cried Lord Rhoop. “You have destroyed it!”
“I don’t think it was us,” said Lucy.
Chapter XII: The island remains
The final added clause makes the substantive difference explicit: the darkness recedes behind the ship rather than being destroyed.
Read Lewis’s later wording in the chapter →
First British edition
So all afternoon with great joy they sailed south-east with a fair wind. But nobody noticed when the albatross had disappeared.
Editorial reference: Wikipedia’s side-by-side edition comparison. The linked comparison summarizes the publication history and identifies the passages; this page preserves the earlier wording beside links to the default reading text.
In the chronicles
These links are resolved against the supplied novels. Each opens the cited paragraph in the chapter reader.
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader4 cited passages⌄
- Chapter I · paragraph 10
…t it. He thought of course that they were making it all up; and as he was quite incapable of making anything up himself, he did not approve of that.
Open passage → - Chapter XII · paragraph 61
And just as there are moments when simply to lie in bed and see the daylight pouring through your window and to hear the cheerful voice of an early postman or milkman down below and to realise that it was only a dream: i…
Open passage → - Chapter XII · paragraph 67
"Never to ask me, nor to let any other ask me, what I have seen during my years on the Dark Island."
Open passage → - Chapter XII · paragraph 71
…all afternoon with great joy they sailed south-east with a fair wind, and the hump of darkness grew smaller and smaller astern. But nobody noticed when the albatross had disappeared.
Open passage →