THE Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by Oxford author CS Lewis has been voted the children's book that British adults most want to read again.

The children's classic, written by Lewis while he was teaching English at Magdalen College in the 1940s, was among a host of Oxford books which made the top 20 in a new survey.

JRR Tolkien's The Hobbit, published in 1936, ranked eighth, immediately followed by The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Tolkien's works were followed in tenth place by Alice's Adventure's in Wonderland, published by Oxford Don Charles Dodgson under the pen name Lewis Carroll in 1865.

The survey by mattress company Simba found that nearly 20 per cent of adults in the UK would choose to read fantasy at bed time if they needed to get to sleep.

The top 20 children's novels British adults would like to re-read:

1. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

2. The Secret Garden

3. The Railway Children

4. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

5. Animal Farm

6. Treasure Island

7. The Wind in the Willows

8. The Hobbit

9. The Lord of the Rings trilogy

10. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

11. The Jungle Book

12. Robinson Crusoe

13. Black Beauty

14. The BFG

15. Matilda

16. Winnie-the-Pooh

17. Peter Pan

18. The Tale of Peter Rabbit

19. The Swiss Family Robinson

20. The Borrowers