The novel is set in the period covered by the last chapter of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe during the reign of the four Pevensie children as Kings and Queens of Narnia.
Like the other novels in The Chronicles of Narnia, The Horse and His Boy was illustrated by Pauline Baynes; her work has been retained in many later editions.
After weeks of northwards travel, during which the two companions bond, a brief chase to escape lions leads to their meeting another pair of refugees: another Narnian Talking Horse, the mare Hwin, who like Bree desires to return home, and Aravis, a young noblewoman who wants to escape a political marriage to Ahoshta, the ugly Grand Vizier.
Pooling their information, they set out across the desert along the hidden route to warn Archenland; they are again chased by a lion, which injures Aravis.
The Narnians, led by King Edmund and Queen Lucy, arrive at the Archenland capital of Anvard, and defeat the Calormenes, who were unable to take the castle because of Shasta's warning.
His human form is restored when he returns to Tashbaan, but thereafter he is forbidden to travel more than ten miles from the city, on pain of permanent transformation.
Lune realizes that Shasta is his son Cor, the long-lost identical twin of Prince Corin and the heir to the Archenland throne.
And I was the lion you do not remember who pushed the boat in which you lay, a child near death, so that it came to shore where a man sat, wakeful at midnight, to receive you.
In the setting of The Horse and His Boy, the reader finds a departure from the landscapes, culture, and people of the Narnian realms which have become familiar in the other books.
The placement of the action in the realm of Calormen helps to convey a sense of "unbelonging" on the part of the characters and the reader, which reinforces the motif of longing for a true home.
[12] Walden Media made movie adaptations of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Prince Caspian and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.
[13] In 2022, The Logos Theater, of Taylors, South Carolina, created a stage adaptation of The Horse and His Boy, with later performances at the Museum of the Bible[14] and Ark Encounter.