OUT OF THE SILENT PLANET

Item Details

Kent, UK, 1981, Softcover

Unproduced and unrecorded original SCREENPLAY of C. S. Lewis’s OUT OF THE SILENT PLANET

Screenplay adapted by D.G. McG. Burns. 1981. Correspondence to David Kaplan c/o William Burns, 9 Morgan Road, Bromley, Kent, UK.

An unproduced sci-fi film script screenplay adaptation of the iconic first novel in Lewis’s 1938 Cosmic Space Trilogy. From the estate of Martin Rosen who in 1978 directed and wrote the script for the acclaimed animated classic Watership Down. C.S. Lewis is the author of the Chronicles of Narnia which were adapted into three seminal films, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005); Prince Caspian (2008); and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (2010). Out of the Silent Planet has yet to be adapted into a film. Perhaps Martin Rosen was thinking about it but never got to it.

Xerographic copy on white paper, 8.5” x 11” inches, 180 un-numbered pages printed on one side only. White plastic spiral bound, blue card front cover and heavy white card rear cover. VERY GOOD Condition: the blue front cover is tearing and partially disbound from the spirals, is creased and has a few small stains, internally, just some light wear from age, otherwise tight, bright, clean and unmarked. Scarce. I could not find another screenplay adaptation in any collection nor could I find out anything about the writer other than he owned a house in Kent and may have been a professor. The screenplay follows the foundational plot points from the novel. The hero, Ransom a professor reminiscent of Lewis’s friend J.R.R Tolkien, is kidnapped and brought to the mysterious planet of Malacandra (Mars) aboard a strange space ship. The professor escapes his captors and finds himself terrified on this unfamiliar world. His curiosity overcomes his fear when he discovers many of the aliens possess the ability to speak and share a common tongue. During his time on Malacandra the professor learns about the planet and its alien inhabitants, but learns much more about his home planet Earth, known across the solar system as the “silent planet” quarantined because of its history of rebellion and moral darkness thus discovering the place humans occupy in the universe.

Clive Staples Lewis (18980-1963) Irish born scholar, novelist, and Christian apologist. Best known for The Chronicles of Narnia, he was a fellow at Oxford and Cambridge universities and a prominent member of “The Inklings,” where he influenced fellow authors like J.R.R. Tolkien.

Martin Gerald Rosen (born 1936) is an American British filmmaker and theater producer. He directed the animated film adaptations of Watership Down (1978) and The Plague Dogs (1982), both from Richard Adams novels.