Narnia Reading Order

I'm just posting this on a whim.  For the first time in my adult life (and for the first time in over a decade for that matter), I decided to re-read the books that comprise The Chronicles of Narnia.  Over the past decade, though, there has been some controversy about the order in which the books should be read.  There's the publication order of:

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
Prince Caspian
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
The Silver Chair
The Horse and His Boy
The Magician's Nephew
The Last Battle

Then there's the chronological order, in which the series is currently being released and presented:

The Magician's Nephew
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
The Horse and His Boy
Prince Caspian
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
The Silver Chair
The Last Battle

I felt this worthy to bring up here because Star Wars fans get into similar debates, especially at a forum like this, where, if we acknowledge the prequels at all, we encourage people to watch the OT first, despite the official sequence handed down by the company.  It should come as no surprise that I'm a publicationist when it comes to these books.  So, yeah, any and all Narnia fans on these boards, which order do you prefer, and what's your reasoning?

Ah, here is a topic I can really get into!

I always encourage newcomers to the series to tackle them in publication order, to me they have more meaning to them that way. It is not just because I grew up reading them that way, but I think, much like the SW saga, that by reading them in chronological order some of the mystery and awe is lost.

For example, as a kid it was great fun to experience Lucy's wonder as she stepped through the wardrobe and found herself in this fantastic place. Even the lamp post was a fun little oddity that originally remained a mystery until the end of the series.

However, by reading Magician's Nephew first, originally the second to last book, now the first, By the time you get to the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, you will already know the origins of Narnia, the wardrobe, and the lamp post. Reading The Magician's Nephew for the first time was kind of a "ah, so that is why..." moment. It is like reading the end of a mystery novel and discovering what was going on the whole time. It explains why the wardrobe transported Lucy, and how different worlds exist, even how the witch came to be in the land.

I often give sets of these books away to friends as gifts, and I always include a list of the publication order and encourage them to read it that way.

Even the movies were being made in publication order rather than chronological order, that says something. Though now that Disney has abandoned them, who knows if we will even get another one.

This debate had been going on even while C.S. Lewis was still alive. I remember reading a letter from him to a little boy who asked him which order he should read them in, Lewis answers that he had not put a lot of thought into it, but concedes that the chronological order may be the preferable order of reading. And now that is the order most newcomers read them in, since newer printings of the books themselves have the chronological ordering on the spine.

EDIT: ripped this off of wikipedia:

Lewis' reply to a letter from an American fan in 1957 who was having an argument with his mother about the order:

I think I agree with your order [i.e. chronological] for reading the books more than with your mother's. The series was not planned beforehand as she thinks. When I wrote The Lion I did not know I was going to write any more. Then I wrote P. Caspian as a sequel and still didn't think there would be any more, and when I had done The Voyage I felt quite sure it would be the last, but I found I was wrong. So perhaps it does not matter very much in which order anyone read them. I’m not even sure that all the others were written in the same order in which they were published.

I would definately stick to publication order.  The set I read was one of the last to have them in that order.  Like C3PX said, Magician's Nephew is more of a "oh, so that's why" experience.

Which set was that?  The set that I have was by Collier Books (a division of Macmillan Publishing).  I believe they were printed in the 1970s.  At least the publication date on the individual books say 1970.  This set consists of tiny, white books, topped with "C.S. Lewis" in black.  Under that is the title.  Then below that is an extremely colorful, '70s-esque cover image (in the one for The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Peter and Edmund remind me of The Beatles from the Yellow Submarine movie).  In a tiny arch above the image, it says "Book X of The Chronicles of Narnia."  And then on the back, there's a little blurb about this book being like a passport to Narnia and encourages you to read them all.  And then, there is a list and one-sentence description of each book.

So, yeah, which set do you have, and how old is it?

Publication order. Hands down. I could be more elaborate, but for all intents and purposes C3PX said almost everything I wanted to say. You keep so much more of the magic that way. The first time I read the series, it was unbelievable how, as I started closing out the series, Lewis tied everything in together so well. The one moment that stuck out for me was learning about what the Wardrobe was made of. It was at that point I really realized the scope of the series, and quite literally got one of the biggest cases of chills I can remember. It was eerie how it all fit together. My kids are definitely going to have them read to them in publication order. And in any case, The Last Battle is last, which is all that really matters.