Content Warning: This section refers to terminal illness and death. 

The book opens in December 1950 in Worcestershire, England. Eight-year-old George Devonshire knows that he is dying from an uncurable heart condition. His pills are beside his bed next to The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis, which has just been published. The book allows George to escape his bedroom into the world of Narnia.

From his bed, George can see that it is snowing heavily outside. He is looking forward to his sister, Margaret (or “Megs”), returning for the weekend so that he can tell her all about Narnia. His wardrobe does not provide access to a magical world like the one in Lewis’s book. Nevertheless, he likes to sit inside and imagine that he is in Narnia instead of thinking about his prognosis and listening to his mother quietly crying. George knows that Lewis lives in Oxford, where his sister is studying. He longs to know where the land of Narnia came from.