In 1962, with copies of The Redemption of Susan Pevensie flying off the shelves, the renowned children's author Clive Staples ("Jack") Lewis returned to the Unfinished Narnian Tale referred to simply as the "Lefay Fragment".

Out of the Shadowlands #2: CS Lewis finishes the "Lefay Fragment"Because having explored the interwoven destinies of his wife Helen Joy Davidman and the protagonist, he mustered the emotional strength to re-open an even more painful chapter in his life: the premature death of his mother Flora Lewis. That childhood trauma had instilled a profound sense of anger with God that had not fully abated until the fateful evening of 19th September, 1929 when Hugo Dyson and JRR Tolkien brought Lewis back to Christianity.

Of course The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe had started off merely as a romp, and certainly Lewis had no intention of writing a sequel. He struggled to do so, and in the event wrote the sequence of Chronicles in a non sequential order. In The Magicians Nephew the mischievous protagonist Digory Kirke is able to save the life of his dying mother. And yet his original intention was to frame the protagonist as an orphan under the influence of Mrs Lefay, an evil godmother who leads him into the trouble that opens The Magicians Nephew. But the "LeFay Fragment" was abandoned for reasons that had much to do with Lewis refusing to accept God's will in taking his mother's life. After his wife's recovery from bone cancer, he chose now to explore that trauma, and if necessary, substantially edit The Magicians Nephew to accomodate a major plot change.