Oh, these are stunning!

I think 7 is my favorite, but I love how 7 and 5 and 1 are using a similar color scheme. 5 and 4 strike me as the most unique takes on representing the book (though 5 also reminds me of older sci-fi covers and 4 feels like a much newer design). 3 is classic and I'm a huge fan of the watercolor-like style. 1, 4, and 6 feel modern and while I would not personally choose the style of 6 to represent the series it does make me smile. 2 straddles a lot of categories.

If I had to chose just one... well. That's a really hard choice between good options. My informal bracket gets me 4 vs 7 with 7 coming out on top.

Oh yes, I particularly like Number 7 as well! Really captures that whole Charn vibe perfectly.

I also really like the typography they've used for it. Reminds me a lot of a 1970s sci-fi novel. I think this is (sort of) the direction I would like Greta Gerwig's movie to go down. Not necessarily this exact font, just something like this which is much less insistingly "fantastical" as the Walden-era swooshing-tail logo.

It's also interesting that neither 7 or 4 mention the series, whereas the others make sure to include it with varying degrees of visual importance.

I don't think any of these are utterly fantastic, but I rather like number 3 in general, except the children are drawn really badly. If they were done better / more realistically, I think that would be a great cover, with the mysteriousness and greenness of the Wood between the Worlds, and Polly and Digory about to jump into that pool, not knowing where it will take them. (It's presumably the one for Charn.)

7 is excellent artistically and probably would get my top vote, if it wasn't for the fact that it doesn't portray the scene accurately, even though the Charn atmosphere is pretty good. Jadis, when they find her, isn't seated on her own in an open plaza — she's indoors, within the hall of images in the palace of Charn. Also, the buildings we see in the background of this illustration aren't ruined enough — Polly and Digory notice very quickly that they've landed in a place that is "all in ruins" that look like they might fall down at any moment (and some do, while they're there). Discrepancies like that between cover illustrations and the actual scenes in the book really irked me as a child, and they still do now!!  

None of the other covers really grab me, though.

I have to wonder how many of these artists read the book, not skimmed it? I see a lot of inaccuracies.

1. Those don't look like Victorian clothes on the kids, and Polly's two Cindy Brady ponytails aren't a Victorian hairstyle either. The scene with the monster fountain did not take place on a terrace either; it was in an interior courtyard, so you wouldn't see the sky behind. Which would be dark blue, almost black, as Lewis says.

2. There was an earthen wall of sod around the garden, with a gate, not a stone wall with an arched entrance. Plus, only Digory walked up to it.

3. This one is OK, but kind of blah. No inaccuracies.

4. I don't see anything of the book in there. It looks like patches of snow melting on the ground in a forest.

5. Again,RIGHT THERE IN THE TEXT it says the sun is red, and the sky dark blue! And the sun is a sun. It shouldn't have rays like a star.

6. This is cute for an abridged children's version of the book. I don't like the ears on the kids, though.

7. I know Jadis was part giant but she wouldn't be THAT big in comparison to the children. Plus., she would be in hall of images, not outside. I am really distracted that Florence cathedral is behind them.

@cobalt-jade and @courtenay

I tend to agree with you. Number 3 is bearable but not quite late Victorian in clothing. Number 7 is dramatic but Jadis should be smaller and indoors (not sitting outside because she's too big like Alice after eating the wrong product). 

These mostly look like school art projects.

Posted by: @cobalt-jade

I know Jadis was part giant but she wouldn't be THAT big in comparison to the children... I am really distracted that Florence cathedral is behind them.

Yes, either that or... now I realise why I thought it looked familiar! Charn has also gone and copied the Royal Exhibition Building in Melbourne.

Posted by: @coracle

because she's too big (like Alice after eating the wrong product). 

Oh dear, now I won't be able to get that image out of my head... Jadis nibbling a cake, or a piece of mushroom, and shooting up to an even bigger size. (Curiouser and curiouser. ) 

I think it's interesting that this discussion essentially cuts along the same sort of line as the one for the new official book covers:

• For some people, the general vibe, tone, and overall aesthetics of the cover are most important.
• For other people, the accuracy, detail, and fidelity to the text are most important,.

I'm definitely a Category A person.

Posted by: @icarus

I think it's interesting that this discussion essentially cuts along the same sort of line as the one for the new official book covers:

• For some people, the general vibe, tone, and overall aesthetics of the cover are most important.
• For other people, the accuracy, detail, and fidelity to the text are most important,.

I'm definitely a Category A person.

For me, it's actually a bit of both. The overall aesthetics of the cover are definitely important to me, and frankly, nearly all of those fan art covers are aesthetically mediocre to downright awful.    But fidelity to the text probably is a bit more important to me overall, simply because it indicates that the artist has almost certainly read the whole book thoroughly and really thought about the story, rather than just skimming it or reading a brief precis and inventing a scene that the artist thinks looks good, without caring whether or not that scene happens in the actual plot.

Or it could even be that they have read the story, but decided they can do an imagined scene that "improves" on it, like what may have happened with that seventh cover for MN: "Hmmm, the book says Digory and Polly first see Jadis as the last in a whole row of statues of kings and queens seated along the wall of a great hall. Too boring and doesn't make her stand out enough. I reckon it'd be much more impressive if she was on her own, under a huge ornamental arch, in a city with a sort of classical / Renaissance vibe. Oh yeah, and if she was so big that if she stood up, Polly and Digory would barely reach her knees."  

That particular picture actually is the most artistically / aesthetically pleasing of the lot, by quite a long way, but the total lack of accuracy to the plot ruins it for me. Whereas cover 3 is the most accurate to the plot and aesthetically not too bad... except the children look utterly ghastly (and not just because they're green in the face). As I said, if that one could be redrawn by somebody who can draw human figures realistically, it'd be spot on for me. OK, and maybe it helps that green is my favourite colour!  

So yes, overall "category B" is the clincher for me, but I definitely don't ignore "category A" (and in the end, publishers are going to lean towards artistic merit over fidelity to the text, because people DO judge a book by its cover). I was just now thinking of Pauline Baynes's covers for the paperback Chronicles as published in the '60s and '70s and reprinted many times. They're my overall favourites, and mostly they are accurate to what happens in the books as well as pleasing to look at, but there are a few downsides even to them. I won't send this off topic by analysing them all, but the one that I like the least is The Last Battle. After all the other cover designs Baynes did that are mostly well "posed" and balanced and pretty credible as an artistic snapshot from the story... her attempt at depicting a ferocious battle by firelight is just farcical. It's faithful to the story in that it portrays a scene that does happen in it, but it just looks so awkward and clownishly unrealistic that it really doesn't do the dramatic finale much justice. But oh well, can't have everything...  

The Magician’s Nephew has so many iconic symbols that I’m surprised by how similar most published covers are. That’s why I really appreciate how these all highlight different scenes and moments.

I have no issues with artistic liberties being taken for book covers or artwork in general—honestly, even Pauline Baynes' illustrations aren’t a perfect match to the text.

But it’s I had to pick one to represent the book in publication, it would be #2. I love its colours and the unique perspective of looking into the Garden.

I don’t care much for any of them.  I think they should return to the covers of the fiftieth anniversary which were colorized by Pauline Baynes. Number 6 is the least like the book.  I especially don’t like the way the artist drew Digory and Polly. The cover is too cartoonish for Narnia.  Fledge doesn’t look anything like the flying horse from mythology. 

Yeah, I'm not too keen on these for the most part; they're not really capturing the moments in the book accurately.

Design-wise the most appropriate one is the third, with the colour tone and painterly appearance capturing something of the book's tone. As Courtenay has said, the children would need to be drawn a little more anatomically-correct – but a bit of a style to them is fine. The seventh is drawn and painted well – lovely lighting – but it's not captured the scene right!

It's gotta be 3 for me. The stylization doesn't yuck my yum as much as it seems to for some people, it's an iconic moment from the book that doesn't stray too badly from the book, and notably, they got the light right. It's rare that I see versions of this scene in art that have that green, growing sort of ambient light.