Clive Staples Lewis

*"If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world*" - C. S. Lewis
**Clive Staples Lewis** (29 November 1898 – 22 November 1963), commonly referred to as **C. S. Lewis** or **Jack** by his friends and family, was an Irish author and scholar. Lewis is known for his work on medieval literature, Christian apologetics, literary criticism and fiction. As well as writing the *Space Trilogy*, he is known for his *The Screwtape Letters*, *The Chronicles of Narnia,* and nonfiction works such as *Mere Christianity*. Lewis was born in Belfast, in pre-partition Ireland. As well as being considered one of the greatest Christian thinkers of his time, Lewis wrote over 30 books, which were in turn translated into over 30 different languages. He has a fictionalised counterpart in the C.S. Lewis character of the Space Trilogy.

Lewis was a close friend of J. R. R. Tolkien, the author of *The Lord of the Rings*, and both were leading figures in the Oxford literary group the Inklings along with Charles Williams. Due in part to Tolkien's influence, Lewis converted to Christianity, becoming "a very ordinary layman of the Church of England". His conversion would have a profound effect on his work, and his wartime radio broadcasts on the subject of Christianity brought him wide acclaim. Late in life he married the American writer Joy Gresham (née Davidman), who died of bone cancer four years later at the age of 45.

Lewis' works have been translated into over 30 languages and continue to sell over a million copies a year; the books that comprise *The Chronicles of Narnia* have sold over 100 million copies. A number of stage and screen adaptations of Lewis' works have also been produced, the most notable of which is the 2005 Disney film adaptation of *The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe* which grossed US$745,000,000 worldwide.

## Biography

C. S. Lewis was born in Belfast, Ireland in 1898, into a Church of Ireland (Anglican) family of Welsh-Irish origin. His grandfather, Thomas Hamilton, was an Anglican vicar. As a teenager, he abandoned the Christianity of his home and became interested in mythology and the occult. He enrolled in Oxford, but his studies were interrupted by World War I. He enlisted, was commissioned, and was then wounded in action. While convalescing, he became very close to Jane Moore, the mother of a fellow soldier. They were close, and even lived under the same roof for years, though the details of their relationship are unclear. In part as a result of his friendship with J. R. R. Tolkien, Lewis came to believe in God at age 31 and in Jesus Christ two years later. He married Joy Gresham, first in a civil ceremony of convenience and later in a Christian ceremony. She died of bone cancer soon thereafter. Lewis himself died of kidney failure in 1963.

### Childhood

Clive Staples Lewis was born in Belfast, Ireland (now in Northern Ireland) on November 29, 1898. His father was Albert James Lewis (1863-1929), a solicitor whose father had come to Ireland from Wales. His mother was Flora Augusta Hamilton Lewis (1862-1908), the daughter of a Church of Ireland priest. He had one older brother, Warren "Warnie" Hamilton Lewis. At the age of four, shortly after his dog Jacksie was hit by a car, Lewis announced that his name was now Jacksie. At first he would answer to no other name, but later accepted Jacks which became Jack, the name by which he was known to friends and family for the rest of his life. At six his family moved into Little Lea, the house the elder Mr. Lewis built for Mrs. Lewis, in Strandtown, Northern Ireland.

Lewis was initially schooled by private tutors before being sent to the Wynyard School in Watford, Hertfordshire, England in 1908, the same year that his mother died of cancer. Lewis's brother had already enrolled there three years previously. The school was soon closed due to a lack of pupils—the headmaster Robert "Oldie" Capron was soon after committed to an insane asylum. Tellingly, in *Surprised By Joy*, Lewis would later nickname the school "Belsen" after the German camp. There is some speculation by biographer Alan Jacobs that the atmosphere at Wynyard greatly traumatized Lewis and was responsible for the development of "mildly sadomasochistic fantasies".

After Wynyard closed, Lewis attended Campbell College in the east of Belfast about a mile from his home, but he left after a few months due to respiratory problems. As a result of his illness, Lewis was sent to the health-resort town of Malvern, Worcestershire, where he attended the prep-school Cherbourg House (known to Lewis as "Chartres"). It was during his time at Cherbourg at the age of 13 that he abandoned his childhood Christian faith and became an atheist, becoming interested in mythology and the occult.

In September 1913 Lewis enrolled at Malvern College, where he would remain until the following June. Later he would describe its culture as a "burning desert of competitive ambition" relieved only by the "oasis" of pederastic loves between upperclassmen and the younger students, though he would also call this a "perversion". After leaving Malvern he moved to study privately with William T. Kirkpatrick, his father's old tutor and former headmaster of Lurgan College.

As a young boy, Lewis had a fascination for anthropomorphic animals, falling in love with Beatrix Potter's stories and often writing and illustrating his own animal stories. He and his brother Warnie together created the world of Boxen, inhabited and run by animals. Lewis loved to read, and as his father's house was filled with books, he felt that finding a book he had not read was as easy as "finding a blade of grass." He also had a mortal fear of spiders and insects as a child, and they often haunted his dreams.

As a teenager, he was wonderstruck by the songs and legends of what he called *Northernness*. These legends intensified a longing he had within, a deep desire he would later call "joy." He also grew to love nature — the beauty of nature reminded him of the stories of the North, and the stories of the North reminded him of the beauties of nature. His writing in his teenage years moved away from the tales of Boxen, and he began to use different art forms (epic poetry and opera) to try to capture his newfound interest in Norse mythology and the natural world. Studying with Kirkpatrick ("The Great Knock", as Lewis afterwards called him) instilled in him a love of Greek literature and mythology, and sharpened his skills in debate and clear reasoning.

### World War I

Having won a scholarship to University College, Oxford in 1916, Lewis enlisted the following year in the British Army as World War I raged on, and was commissioned an officer in the third Battalion, The Somerset Light Infantry. Lewis arrived at the front line in the Somme Valley in France on his eighteenth birthday.

On 15 April 1917, Lewis was wounded during the Battle of Arras, and suffered some depression during his convalescence, due in part to missing his Irish home. On his recovery in October, he was assigned to duty in Andover, England. He was discharged in December 1918, and soon returned to his studies. Lewis received a First in Honour Moderations (Greek and Latin Literature) in 1920, a First in Greats (Philosophy and Ancient History) in 1922, and a First in English in 1923.

While being trained for the army Lewis shared a room and became close friends with another cadet, "Paddy" Moore. The two had made a mutual pact that if either died during the war, the survivor would take care of both their families. Paddy was killed in action in 1918 and Lewis kept his promise. Paddy had earlier introduced Lewis to his mother, Jane King Moore, and a friendship very quickly sprang up between Lewis, who was eighteen when they met, and Jane, who was forty-five. The friendship with Mrs. Moore was particularly important to Lewis while he was recovering from his wounds in hospital and his father refused to visit him. His father probably didn't visit him because he was not acting as a Christian should.

### Jane Moore

There has been some speculation among some Lewis scholars as to the nature of the relationship between Lewis and Jane Moore. Lewis for most of his life introduced Moore as his "mother" to all his acquaintances. Lewis was exceptionally reticent on the matter in his autobiography, writing only "All I can or need to say is that my earlier hostility to the emotions was very fully and variously avenged". The biographer A. N. Wilson declared categorically that they had been intimate during the period of his convalescence, but this seems to be based on few and poorly interpreted letters, and owes something to Wilson's tendency to psychological interpretation. Walter Hooper, Lewis's literary executor, allowed that it was possible, but as a late acquaintance his data are all derivative, as are Wilson's. George Sayer, who was a student of Lewis and later a friend, wrote that, after talking to Jane Moore's daughter, he was quite certain that they were lovers. At any rate, their friendship was certainly a very close one. In December 1917 Lewis wrote in a letter to his childhood friend Arthur Greeves that Jane and Greeves were "the two people who matter most to me in the world".

After the war, in 1918 or 1919, Lewis and Moore shared a house, although Lewis also kept rooms at his college, and in 1930, they and Lewis's brother, Warren Lewis, moved into "The Kilns", a house in Risinghurst, Headington (a suburb of Oxford). They all contributed financially to the purchase of the house, which passed to Lady Dunbar of Hempriggs, Moore's daughter, when Warren died in 1973.

Moore has been much criticized for being possessive and controlling and making Lewis do a lot of housework. However, she was also a warmhearted, affectionate and hospitable woman who was well liked by her neighbours at The Kilns. "She was generous and taught me to be generous, too", Lewis said to his friend George Sayer.

Moore suffered from dementia in her later years and was eventually moved into a nursing home, where she died in 1951. Lewis visited her every day in this home until her death.

### "My Irish life"

Lewis experienced a certain cultural shock upon first arriving in England: "No Englishman will be able to understand my first impressions of England," Lewis wrote in *Surprised by Joy*. "The strange English accents with which I was surrounded seemed like the voices of demons. But what was worst was the English landscape ... I have made up the quarrel since; but at that moment I conceived a hatred for England which took many years to heal."

Since boyhood Lewis immersed himself in Irish mythology and Irish literature and expressed an interest in the Irish language, though there is not much evidence that he laboured to learn it. He developed a particular fondness for W. B. Yeats, in part because of Yeats's use of Ireland's Celtic heritage in poetry. In a letter to a friend Lewis wrote, "I have here discovered an author exactly after my own heart, whom I am sure you would delight in, W. B. Yeats. He writes plays and poems of rare spirit and beauty about our old Irish mythology."

In 1921, Lewis met Yeats twice, since Yeats had moved to Oxford. Surprised to find his English peers indifferent to Yeats and the Celtic Revival movement, Lewis wrote: "I am often surprised to find how utterly ignored Yeats is among the men I have met: perhaps his appeal is purely Irish – if so, then thank the gods that I am Irish." Early in his career, Lewis considered sending his work to the major Dublin publishers, writing: "If I do ever send my stuff to a publisher, I think I shall try Maunsel, those Dublin people, and so tack myself definitely onto the Irish school." After his conversion to Christianity, his interests gravitated towards Christian spirituality and away from pagan Celtic mysticism.

Lewis occasionally expressed a somewhat tongue-in-cheek chauvinism toward the English. Describing an encounter with a fellow Irishman he wrote: "Like all Irish people who meet in England we ended by criticisms on the invincible flippancy and dulness of the Anglo-Saxon race. After all, there is no doubt, *ami*, that the Irish are the only people: with all their faults I would not gladly live or die among another folk." Throughout his life, he sought out the company of other Irish living in England and visited Northern Ireland regularly, even spending his honeymoon there in 1958 at the Old Inn, Crawfordsburn. He called this "my Irish life."

Various critics have suggested that it was Lewis's dismay over sectarian conflict in his native Belfast that led him to eventually adopt such an ecumenical brand of Christianity. As one critic has said, Lewis "repeatedly extolled the virtues of all branches of the Christian faith, emphasising a need for unity among Christians around what the Catholic writer G.K. Chesterton called 'Mere Christianity’, the core doctrinal beliefs that all denominations share." On the other hand, Paul Stevens of the University of Toronto has written that "Lewis's 'Mere Christianity' masked many of the political prejudices of an old-fashioned Ulster Protestant, a native of middle-class Belfast for whom British withdrawal from Northern Ireland even in the 1950's and 1960's was unthinkable"

Surprised to find his English peers indifferent to Yeats and the Celtic Revival movement, Lewis wrote: "I am often surprised to find how utterly ignored Yeats is among the men I have met: perhaps his appeal is purely Irish — if so, then thank the gods that I am Irish." Early in his career, Lewis considered sending his work to the major Dublin publishers, writing: "If I do ever send my stuff to a publisher, I think I shall try Maunsel, those Dublin people, and so tack myself definitely onto the Irish school." After his conversion to Christianity, his interests gravitated towards Christian spirituality and away from Celtic mysticism.

Perhaps to help cope with his homesick feelings, Lewis, occasionally, expressed a somewhat tongue-in-cheek chauvinism toward the English. Describing an encounter with a fellow Irishman he wrote: "Like all Irish people who meet in England we ended by criticisms of the inevitable flippancy and dullness of the Anglo-Saxon race. After all, ami, there is no doubt that the Irish are the only people ... I would not gladly live or die among another folk."

Due to his Oxford career, Lewis did indeed live and die among another folk, and he often expressed regret at having to leave Ireland. Throughout his life, he sought out the company of his fellow Irish living in England and visited Northern Ireland regularly, even spending his honeymoon there. He called this "my Irish life".

### Conversion Back to Christianity

Although raised in a church going family in the Church of Ireland, Lewis became an atheist at the age of 13, and remained as such until he was 31 years old. His separation from Christianity began when he started to view his religion as a chore and as a duty; around this time he also gained an interest in the occult as his studies expanded to include such topics. Lewis quoted Lucretius as having one of the strongest arguments for atheism:

*Nequaquam nobis divinitus esse paratam*
*Naturam rerum; tanta stat praedita culpa*
*Had God designed the world, it would not be*
*A world so frail and faulty as we see.*
Though an atheist at the time, Lewis later described his young self (in *Surprised by Joy*) as being paradoxically "very angry with God for not existing".

Influenced by arguments with his Oxford colleague and friend J. R. R. Tolkien, and by G.K. Chesterton's book, *The Everlasting Man*, he slowly rediscovered Christianity. He fought greatly up to the moment of his conversion noting that he was brought into Christianity like a prodigal, "kicking, struggling, resentful, and darting his eyes in every direction for a chance to escape." He described his last struggle in *Surprised by Joy*:

"You must picture me alone in that room in Magdalen, night after night, feeling, whenever my mind lifted even for a second from my work, the steady, unrelenting approach of Him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet. That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me. In the Trinity Term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England."
After his conversion to Theism in 1929, Lewis converted to Christianity in 1931. Lewis's 1931 conversion followed a long discussion and late-night walk with his close friends Tolkien and Hugo Dyson; after it Lewis converted to Christianity, while on his way to the Zoo with his brother, and joined the Church of England—somewhat to the regret of the devout Roman Catholic Tolkien, who had hoped he would convert to his denomination. It should be noted that Chesterton was also Roman Catholic.

Although a committed Anglican, Lewis' beliefs in many respects inclined to the Catholic rather than the Protestant tradition; for example, he accepted the Catholic doctrine of mortal sin, implying that he believed Christians could lose their salvation (which is at odds with Reformed views on justification. This opinion was expressed in his book *The Screwtape Letters* by the demon Screwtape)

Lewis was also sympathetic to the Catholic doctrine of Purgatory. His references to the subject in his final work, *Letters to Malcolm*, find him taking a line similar to the Roman Catholic theologian John Henry Newman's approach in "The Dream of Gerontius".(It seems likely that Newman in turn took his position from Catherine of Genoa's "Purgation and Purgatory".)

Also, Lewis is sometimes considered to have serious elements of Orthodox Christianity belief. Literary and church figures quote his works as sources of Lewis' hidden Orthodox Christian belief.

## The author

 File:C.S. Lewis' signature.png
In addition to his scholarly work, Lewis wrote a number of popular novels, including his science fiction Space Trilogy and his fantasy Narnia books, most dealing implicitly with Christian themes such as sin, the Fall, and redemption.

#### The Pilgrim's Regress

His first novel after becoming a Christian was *The Pilgrim's Regress*, his take on John Bunyan's *The Pilgrim's Progress* which depicted his own experience with Christianity. The book was critically panned at the time, particularly for its esoteric nature - as to read it requires a close familiarity with classical sources.

In a footnote of the biography *D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: The Fight of Faith 1939-1981* by Iain Murray, Murray notes the following: "Lewis is said to have valued ML-J's appreciation and encouragement when the early edition of his *Pilgrim's Regress* was not selling well. Vincent Lloyd-Jones and Lewis knew each other well, being contemporaries at Oxford. ML-J met the author again and they had a long conversation when they found both themselves on the same boat to Ireland in 1953. On the later occasion, to the question, 'When are you going to write another book?', Lewis replied, 'When I understand the meaning of prayer'."

#### The Chronicles of Narnia

*The Chronicles of Narnia* is a series of seven fantasy novels for children and is considered a classic of children's literature. Written between 1949 and 1954 and illustrated by Pauline Baynes, the series is Lewis' most popular work having sold over 100 million copies in 41 languages. They have been adapted a number of times, complete or in part, for radio, television, stage, and cinema. The series has been published in several different orders, and the preferred reading order for the series is often debated among fans.

The books contain many allusions to Christian ideas which are easily accessible to younger readers; however, the books are not weighty, and can be read for their adventure, colour and richness of ideas alone. Because of this, they have become favourites of children and adults, Christians and non-Christians. In addition to Christian themes, Lewis also borrows characters from Greek and Roman mythology as well as traditional British and Irish fairy tales. Lewis reportedly based his depiction of Narnia on the geography and scenery of the Mourne Mountains and "that part of Rostrevor which overlooks Carlingford Lough". Lewis cited George MacDonald's Christian fairy tales as an influence in writing the series.

*The Chronicles of Narnia* present the adventures of children who play central roles in the unfolding history of the fictional realm of Narnia, a place where animals talk, magic is common, and good battles evil. In the majority of the books, children from our world find themselves transported to Narnia by a magical portal. Once there, they are quickly involved in setting some wrong to right with the help of the lion Aslan who is the central character of the series.

#### Space Trilogy

Lewis' Space Trilogy or Ransom Trilogy novels (also called the Cosmic Trilogy) dealt with what Lewis saw as the then-current dehumanizing trends in modern science fiction. The first book, *Out of the Silent Planet*, was apparently written following a conversation with his friend J. R. R. Tolkien about these trends; Lewis agreed to write a "space travel" story and Tolkien a "time travel" one. Tolkien's story, "The Lost Road", a tale connecting his Middle-earth mythology and the modern world, was never completed. Lewis's main character of Ransom is based in part on Tolkien, a fact that Tolkien himself alludes to in his letters. The second novel, *Perelandra*, illustrates a new Garden of Eden, a new Adam and Eve, and a new "serpent figure" to tempt them. The story can be seen as a hypothesis of what could have happened if "our Eve" had resisted more firmly the temptation of the serpent. The last novel in the Trilogy, *That Hideous Strength*, also contains numerous references to Tolkien's fictional universe of Middle-earth. Many of the ideas presented in the books, particularly in That Hideous Strength, are dramatizations of arguments made more formally in Lewis’ *The Abolition of Man*.

This last was based on the series of lectures Lewis had given at Durham University in 1943, designed to counter what he saw as a movement in contemporary literature and thought to de-humanise man. Lewis stayed in Durham, where he was overwhelmed by the cathedral. *That Hideous Strength* is in fact based in the environs of Durham University ('Edgestow').

It is claimed that Lewis began another science-fiction novel, *The Dark Tower*, but it is unfinished; it is not clear whether it was intended as part of the same series as the completed novels. The manuscript was eventually published in 1977, though controversy persists about its authenticity.

#### Other works

Lewis wrote a number of works on Heaven and Hell. One of these, *The Great Divorce*, is a short novella in which a few residents of Hell take a bus ride to Heaven, where they are met by people who dwell there. The proposition is that they can stay (in which case they can call the place where they had come from "Purgatory", instead of "Hell"); but many find it not to their taste. The title is a reference to William Blake's *The Marriage of Heaven and Hell*, a concept that Lewis found a "disastrous error" Template:Harvard citation. This work deliberately echoes two other more famous works with a similar theme: the *Divine Comedy* of Dante Alighieri, and Bunyan's *The Pilgrim's Progress*. Another short work, *The Screwtape Letters*, consists of suave letters of advice from a senior demon, Screwtape, to his nephew Wormwood, on the best ways to tempt a particular human and secure his damnation. Lewis's last novel was *Till We Have Faces*, which he thought of as his most mature and masterly work of fiction but which was never a popular success. It is a retelling of the myth of Cupid and Psyche from the unusual perspective of Psyche's sister. It is deeply concerned with religious ideas, but the setting is entirely pagan, and the connections with specific Christian beliefs are left implicit.

Before Lewis's conversion to Christianity, he published two books: *Spirits in Bondage*, a collection of poems, and *Dymer*, a single narrative poem. Both were published under the pen name Clive Hamilton. Other narrative poems have since been published posthumously, including: *Launcelot*, *The Nameless Isle*, and *The Queen of Drum*.

He also wrote *The Four Loves*, which rhetorically explains four loves including friendship, eros, affection, and charity or caritas.

In 2009, a partial draft of *Language and Human Nature*, which Lewis had begun co-writing with J.R.R. Tolkien, but which was never completed, was discovered.

## The Christian apologist

In addition to his career as a professor of English and an author of fiction, Lewis is regarded by many as one of the most influential Christian apologists of his time.

His most famous works, the *Chronicles of Narnia*, contain many strong Christian messages and are often considered allegory. Lewis, an expert on the subject of allegory, maintained that the books were not allegory, and preferred to call the Christian aspects of them "sup-positional". As Lewis wrote in a letter to a Mrs. Hook in December 1958:

"If Aslan represented the immaterial Deity in the same way in which Giant Despair [a character in *The Pilgrim's Progress*] represents despair, he would be an allegorical figure. In reality however he is an invention giving an imaginary answer to the question, 'What might Christ become like, if there really were a world like Narnia and He chose to be incarnate and die and rise again in that world as He actually has done in ours?' This is not allegory at all."
Lewis continues to attract a wide readership. In 2008, *The Times* ranked him eleventh on their list of "the 50 greatest British writers since 1945". Readers of his fiction are often unaware of what Lewis considered the Christian themes of his works. His Christian apologetics are read and quoted by members of many Christian denominations.Template:Sfn In 2013, on the 50th anniversary of his death, Lewis will join some of Britain's greatest writers recognized at Poets' Corner, Westminster Abbey.

Lewis has been the subject of several biographies, a few of which were written by close friends, such as Roger Gilbert Lancelyn Green and George Sayer. In 1985 the screenplay *Shadowlands* by William Nicholson, which dramatises Lewis's life and relationship with Joy Davidman Gresham, was aired on British television, starring Joss Ackland and Claire Bloom. This was also put on stage starring Nigel Hawthorne in 1989, and made into the 1993 feature film *Shadowlands* starring Anthony Hopkins and Debra Winger. In 2005, a one-hour television movie entitled *C. S. Lewis: Beyond Narnia*, starring Anton Rodgers, provided a general synopsis of Lewis's life.

Many books have been inspired by Lewis, including *A Severe Mercy* by his correspondent and friend Sheldon Vanauken. *The Chronicles of Narnia* have been particularly influential. Modern children's literature such as Daniel Handler's *A Series of Unfortunate Events*, Eoin Colfer's *Artemis Fowl*, Philip Pullman's *His Dark Materials*, and J. K. Rowling's *Harry Potter* have been more or less influenced by Lewis's series Template:Harvard citation. Pullman, an atheist and so fierce a critic of Lewis's work as to be dubbed "the anti-Lewis", considers him a negative influence and has accused Lewis of featuring religious propaganda, misogyny, racism and emotional sadism Template:Harvard citation in his books. However, despite his disdain for his attitudes, Pullman's work shows a considerable influence from Lewis.

Authors of adult fantasy literature such as Tim Powers have also testified to being influenced by Lewis's work.

Most of Lewis's posthumous work has been edited by his literary executor, Walter McGehee Hooper. An independent Lewis scholar, the late Kathryn Lindskoog, argued that Hooper's scholarship is not reliable and that he has made false statements and attributed forged works to Lewis. C. S. Lewis's stepson Douglas Gresham denies the forgery claims, saying that "The whole controversy thing was engineered for very personal reasons ... Her fanciful theories have been pretty thoroughly discredited."

Lewis was strongly opposed to the creation of live-action versions of his works. His major concern was that the anthropomorphic animal characters "when taken out of narrative into actual visibility, always turn into buffoonery or nightmare".

Several C. S. Lewis Societies exist around the world, including one which was founded in Oxford in 1982 to discuss papers on the life and works of Lewis and the other Inklings, and generally appreciate all things Lewisian. His name is also used by a variety of Christian organisations, often with a concern for maintaining conservative Christian values in education or literary studies.

Film adaptations have been made of three of *The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe* (2005), *Prince Caspian* (2008) and *The Voyage of the Dawn Treader* (2010).Lewis is featured as a main character in *The Chronicles of the Imaginarium Geographica* series by James A. Owen. He is one of two characters in Mark St. Germain's 2009 play *Freud's Last Session*, which imagines a meeting between Lewis, aged 41, and Sigmund Freud, aged 83, at Freud's house in Hampstead, London, in 1939, as the Second World War is about to break out.

## Recognition

Lewis is commemorated on 22 November in the Calendar of saints of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America.

Lewis continues to attract a wide readership. In 2008, *The Times* ranked him eleventh on their list of "the 50 greatest British writers since 1945". Readers of his fiction are often unaware of what Lewis considered the Christian themes of his works. His Christian apologetics are read and quoted by members of many Christian denominations

On 23 November 23 – the 50th anniversary of his death – a memorial stone to Lewis was unveiled in Poets' Corner, Westminster Abbey.

Lewis has been the subject of several biographies, a few of which were written by some of his close friends, such as Roger Gilbert Lancelyn Green and George Sayer. In 1985 the screenplay *Shadowlands* by William Nicholson, dramatising Lewis's life and relationship with Joy Davidman Gresham, was aired on British TV (starring Joss Ackland as Lewis and Claire Bloom as Joy). In 1989 this was staged as a theatre play (starring Nigel Hawthorne) and in 1993 *Shadowlands* became a feature film, starring Anthony Hopkins as Lewis and Debra Winger as Joy. In 2005, a one hour made for TV movie entitled *C. S. Lewis: Beyond Narnia* (starring Anton Rodgers) provided a general synopsis of Lewis's life.

Many books have been inspired by Lewis, including *A Severe Mercy* by his correspondent and friend Sheldon Vanauken. *The Chronicles of Narnia* have been particularly influential. Modern children's literature such as Daniel Handler's *A Series of Unfortunate Events*, Eoin Colfer's *Artemis Fowl*, Philip Pullman's *His Dark Materials*, and J. K. Rowling's *Harry Potter* have been more or less influenced by Lewis's series Template:Harvard citation. Pullman, an atheist and so fierce a critic of Lewis's work as to be dubbed "the anti-Lewis", considers him a negative influence and has accused Lewis of featuring religious propaganda, misogyny, racism and emotional sadism Template:Harvard citation in his books. Authors of adult fantasy literature such as Tim Powers have also testified to being influenced by Lewis's work.

Most of Lewis’ posthumous work has been edited by his literary executor, Walter Hooper. An independent Lewis scholar, the late Kathryn Lindskoog, argued that Hooper's scholarship is not reliable and that he has made false statements and attributed forged works to Lewis Template:Harvard citation. C. S. Lewis's stepson, Douglas Gresham, denies the forgery claims, saying that "The whole controversy thing was engineered for very personal reasons... Her fanciful theories have been pretty thoroughly discredited." Template:Harvard citation.

 File:CSLewismural.png
A bronze statue of Lewis's character Digory, from *The Magician's Nephew*, stands in Belfast's Holywood Arches in front of the Holywood Road Library Template:Harvard citation.

Lewis was strongly opposed to the creation of live-action versions of his works. His major concern was that the anthropomorphic animal characters "when taken out of narrative into actual visibility, always turn into buffoonery or nightmare".

Several C.S. Lewis Societies exist around the world, including one which was founded in Oxford in 1982 to discuss papers on the life and works of Lewis and the other Inklings, and generally appreciate all things Lewisian. His name is also used by a variety of Christian organisations, often with a concern for maintaining conservative Christian values in education or literary studies.

The 2005 film adaptation of *The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe* was based on the first instalment of the Narnia series. Film adaptations have been made of two other books he wrote: *Prince Caspian* (released on 16 May 2008) and *The Voyage of the Dawn Treader* (released on 2 December 2010). A film adaptation of *The Great Divorce* is slated for release in 2011.

Lewis is featured as a main character in the Chronicles of the Imaginarium Geographica series by James A. Owen.

## Trivia

* C.S. Lewis died on November 22, 1963, the same date as U.S. president, John F. Kennedy and Aldous Huxley, the English author of *Brave New World*. A play has been written involving the meeting of all three in the afterlife.

It is sometimes said that JFK's assassination overshadowed Lewis' death. While this was certainly true in media terms at the time, neither Lewis' nor Huxley's literary reputations have waned in the years since, and all three figures are still the subject of popular interest. Aldous Huxley may also be said to represent the technocracy that Lewis satirised in "'That Hideous Strength *with the National Institute of Co-ordinated Experiments. (His brother Julian Huxley even more so, as a strong advocate of eugenics, population control, and even as a founder of U.N.E.S.C.O.)*
* C.S. Lewis also died the day before the first ever broadcast of *Doctor Who*. The series has made references to his works, although admittedly more to *The Chronicles of Narnia*.

* Even though many atheists pour scorn on Lewis' Christian apologetics, his concept of "[2]" has found favour outside religious circles. Even RationalWiki, which is highly critical of all religion features an article on this particular logical fallacy and how it can be applied in secular circumstances. Arthur C. Clarke, an agnostic, corresponded with C. S. Lewis in the 1940s and 1950s and they once met in an Oxford pub, The Eastgate, to discuss science fiction and space travel. Clarke, after Lewis's death, voiced great praise for him, saying the Ransom Trilogy was one of the few works of science fiction that could be considered literature.

## Bibliography

### Nonfiction

* *The Allegory of Love: A Study in Medieval Tradition* (1936)
* *Rehabilitations and other essays* (1939) — with two essays not included in *Essay Collection* (2000)
* *The Personal Heresy: A Controversy* (with E. M. W. Tillyard, 1939)
* *The Problem of Pain* (1940)
* *A Preface to Paradise Lost* (1942)
* *The Abolition of Man* (1943)
* *Beyond Personality* (1944)
* *Miracles: A Preliminary Study* (1947, revised 1960)
* *Arthurian Torso* (1948; on Charles Williams's poetry)
* *Mere Christianity* (1952; based on radio talks of 1941 – 1944)
* *English Literature in the Sixteenth Century Excluding Drama* (1954); 1975 reprint ISBN 0198812981;
* *Major British Writers, Vol I* (1954), Contribution on Edmund Spenser
* *Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life* (1955; autobiography)
* *Reflections on the Psalms* (1958)
* *The Four Loves* (1960)
* *Studies in Words* (1960)
* *An Experiment in Criticism* (1961)
* *A Grief Observed* (1961; first published under the pseudonym «N. W. Clerk»)
* *They Asked for a Paper: Papers and Addresses(1962)*
* *Selections from Layamon's Brut* (ed. G L Brook, 1963 *Oxford University Press*) introduction
* *Prayer: Letters to Malcolm* (1964)
* *The Discarded Image: An Introduction to Medieval and Renaissance Literature* (1964)
* *Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Literature* (1966) — not included in *Essay Collection* (2000)
* *Spenser's Images of Life* (ed. Alastair Fowler, 1967)
* *Letters to an American Lady* (1967)
* *Christian Reflections* (1967; essays and papers)
* *Selected Literary Essays* (1969) — not included in *Essay Collection* (2000)
* *God in the Dock: Essays on Theology and Ethics* (1970), = *Undeceptions* (1971) — all included in *Essay Collection* (2000)
* *Of Other Worlds* (1982; essays) — with one essay not included in *Essay Collection*
* *Present Concerns* (1986; essays)
* *All My Road Before Me: The Diary of C. S. Lewis 1922 – 27* (1993)
* *Essay Collection: Literature, Philosophy and Short Stories* (2000)
* *Essay Collection: Faith, Christianity and the Church* (2000)
* *Collected Letters, Vol. I: Family Letters 1905 – 1931* (2000)
* *Collected Letters, Vol. II: Books, Broadcasts and War 1931 – 1949* (2004)
* *Collected Letters, Vol. III: Narnia, Cambridge and Joy 1950 – 1963* (2007)
* *The Business Of Heaven:Daily Readings From C.S.Lewis ed. Walter Hooper, 1984, Harvest Book, Harcourt, Inc.*

### Fiction

* *The Pilgrim's Regress* (1933)
* Space Trilogy
	+ *Out of the Silent Planet* (1938)
	+ *Perelandra* (aka *Voyage to Venus*) (1943)
	+ *That Hideous Strength* (1946)
* *The Screwtape Letters* (1942)
* *The Great Divorce* (1945)
* The Chronicles of Narnia
	+ *The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe* (1950)
	+ *Prince Caspian* (1951)
	+ *The Voyage of the Dawn Treader* (1952)
	+ *The Silver Chair* (1953)
	+ *The Horse and His Boy* (1954)
	+ *The Magician's Nephew* (1955)
	+ *The Last Battle* (1956)
* *Till We Have Faces* (1956)
* *Screwtape Proposes a Toast* (1961) (an addition to *The Screwtape Letters*)
* *Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer* (1964)
* *The Dark Tower and Other Stories*  (1977)
* *Boxen: The Imaginary World of the Young C. S. Lewis* (ed. Walter Hooper, 1985)

### Poetry

* *Spirits in Bondage* (1919; published under pseudonym Clive Hamilton)
* *Dymer* (1926; published under pseudonym Clive Hamilton)
* *Narrative Poems* (ed. Walter Hooper, 1969; includes *Dymer*)
* *The Collected Poems of C. S. Lewis* (ed. Walter Hooper, 1994; includes *Spirits in Bondage*)

### As editor

* *George MacDonald: An Anthology* (1947)
* *Essays Presented to Charles Williams* (1947)

## Secondary works

* John Beversluis, *C. S. Lewis and the Search for Rational Religion*. Eerdmans, 1985. ISBN 0-8028-0046-7
* Humphrey Carpenter, *The Inklings: C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, Charles Williams and their friends*. George Allen & Unwin, 1978. ISBN 0-04-809011-5
* Joe R. Christopher & Joan K. Ostling, *C. S. Lewis: An Annotated Checklist of Writings about him and his Works*. Kent State University Press, n.d. (1972). ISBN 0-87338-138-6
* James Como, *Branches to Heaven: The Geniuses of C. S. Lewis*, Spence, 1998.
* James Como, *Remembering C. S. Lewis* (3rd ed. of *C. S. Lewis at the Breakfast Table*). Ignatius, 2006
* Michael Coren, *The Man Who Created Narnia: The Story of C.S. Lewis*. Eerdmans Pub Co, Reprint edition 1996. ISBN 0-8028-3822-7
* Christopher Derrick, *C. S. Lewis and the Church of Rome: A Study in Proto-Ecumenism*. San Francisco: Ignatius Press. 1981. ISBN 978-9991718507
* Colin Duriez and David Porter, *The Inklings Handbook: The Lives, Thought and Writings of C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, Charles Williams, Owen Barfield, and Their Friends*. 2001, ISBN 1-902694-13-9
* Colin Duriez, *Tolkien and C.S. Lewis: The Gift of Friendship*. Paulist Press, 2003. ISBN 1-58768-026-2
* Bruce L. Edwards, *Not a Tame Lion: The Spiritual World of Narnia*. Tyndale. 2005. ISBN 1414303815
* Bruce L. Edwards, *Further Up and Further In: Understanding C. S. Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe*. Broadman and Holman, 2005. ISBN 0805440704
* Bruce L. Edwards, General Editor, *C. S. Lewis: Life, Works, and Legacy*. 4 Vol. Praeger Perspectives, 2007. ISBN 0275991164
* Bruce L. Edwards, Editor. *The Taste of the Pineapple: Essays on C. S. Lewis as Reader, Critic, and Imaginative Writer.* The Popular Press, 1988. ISBN 0879724072
* Bruce L. Edwards, *A Rhetoric of Reading: C. S. Lewis's Defense of Western Literacy*. Center for the Study of Chrfistian Values in Literature, 1986. ISBN 0939555018
* Alastair Fowler, 'C.S. Lewis: Supervisor', Yale Review, Vol. 91, No. 4 (October 2003).
* Jocelyn Gibb (ed.), *Light on C. S. Lewis*. Geoffrey Bles, 1965 & Harcourt Brace Jovanovich 1976. ISBN 0-15-652000-1
* Douglas Gilbert & Clyde Kilby, *C.S. Lewis: Images of His World*. Eerdmans, 1973 & 2005. ISBN 0-8028-2800-0
* Diana Pavlac Glyer *The Company They Keep: C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien as Writers in Community*. Kent State University Press. Kent Ohio. 2007. ISBN 978-0-87338-890-0
* David Graham (ed.), *We Remember C.S. Lewis*. Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2001. ISBN 0-8054-2299-4
* Roger Gilbert Lancelyn Green & Walter McGehee Hooper, *C. S. Lewis: A Biography*. Fully revised & expanded edition. HarperCollins, 2002. ISBN 0-00-628164-8
* Douglas Gresham, *Jack's Life: A Memory of C.S. Lewis*. Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2005. ISBN 0-8054-3246-9
* Douglas Gresham, *Lenten Lands: My Childhood with Joy Davidman and C.S. Lewis*. HarperSanFrancisco, 1994. ISBN 0-06-063447-2
* William Griffin, *C.S. Lewis: The Authentic Voice*. (Formerly *C.S. Lewis: A Dramatic Life*) Lion, 2005. ISBN 0-7459-5208-9
* Joel D. Heck, *Irrigating Deserts: C. S. Lewis on Education*. Concordia Publishing House, 2006. ISBN 0-7586-0044-5
* David Hein, "A Note on C. S. Lewis's *The Screwtape Letters*." *The Anglican Digest* 49.2 (Easter 2007): 55-58. Argues that Lewis's portrayal of the activity of the Devil was influenced by contemporary events--in particular, by the threat of a Nazi invasion of Britain in 1940.
* David Hein and Edward Hugh Henderson, eds., *Captured by the Crucified: The Practical Theology of Austin Farrer*. New York and London: T & T Clark / Continuum, 2004. A study of Lewis's close friend the theologian Austin Farrer, this book also contains material on Farrer's circle, "the Oxford Christians," including C. S. Lewis.
* Walter Hooper, *C. S. Lewis: A Companion and Guide*. HarperCollins, 1996. ISBN 0-00-627800-0
* Walter Hooper, *Through Joy and Beyond: A Pictorial Biography of C. S. Lewis*. Macmillan, 1982. ISBN 0-02-553670-2
* Alan Jacobs, *The Narnian: The Life and Imagination of C.S. Lewis*. HarperSanFrancisco, 2005. ISBN 0-06-076690-5
* Carolyn Keefe, *C.S. Lewis: Speaker & Teacher*. Zondervan, 1979. ISBN 0-310-26781-1
* Clyde S. Kilby, *The Christian World of C. S. Lewis*. Eerdmans, 1964, 1995. ISBN 0-8028-0871-9
* W.H. Lewis (ed), *Letters of C.S. Lewis*. Geoffrey Bles, 1966. ISBN 0-00-242457-6
* Kathryn Lindskoog, *Light in the Shadowlands: Protecting the Real C. S. Lewis*. Multnomah Pub., 1994. ISBN 0-88070-695-3
* Susan Lowenberg, *C. S. Lewis: A Reference Guide 1972 – 1988*. Hall & Co., 1993. ISBN 0-8161-1846-9
* Wayne Mardindale & Jerry Root, *The Quotable Lewis*. Tyndale House Publishers, 1990. ISBN 0-8423-5115-9
* Markus Mühling, "A Theological Journey into Narnia. An Analysis of the Message beneath the Text", Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2005, ISBN 3-525-60423-8
* Joseph Pearce, *C. S. Lewis and the Catholic Church*. Ignatius Press, 2003. ISBN 0-89870-979-2
* Thomas C. Peters, *Simply C.S. Lewis. A Beginner's Guide to His Life and Works*. Kingsway Publications, 1998. ISBN 0-85476-762-2
* Justin Phillips, *C.S. Lewis at the BBC: Messages of Hope in the Darkness of War*. Marshall Pickering, 2003. ISBN 0-00-710437-5
* Victor Reppert, *C.S. Lewis's Dangerous Idea: In Defense of the Argument from Reason*. InterVarsity Press, 2003. ISBN 0-8308-2732-3
* George Sayer, *Jack: C. S. Lewis and His Times*. Macmillan, 1988. ISBN 0-333-43362-9
* Peter J. Schakel, *Imagination and the Arts in C. S. Lewis: Journeying to Narnia and Other Worlds.* University of Missouri Press, 2002. ISBN 0-8262-1407-X
* Peter J. Schakel. *Reason and Imagination in C. S. Lewis: A Study of "Till We Have Faces."* Available online. Eerdmans, 1984. ISBN 0-8028-1998-2
* Peter J. Schakel, ed. *The Longing for a Form: Essays on the Fiction of C. S. Lewis*. Kent State University Press, 1977. ISBN 0-87338-204-8
* Peter J. Schakel and Charles A. Huttar, ed. *Word and Story in C. S. Lewis.* University of Missouri Press, 1991. ISBN 0-8262-0760-X
* Stephen Schofield. *In Search of C.S. Lewis*. Bridge Logos Pub. 1983. ISBN 0-88270-544-X
* Jeffrey D. Schultz and John G. West, Jr. (eds.), *The C.S. Lewis Readers' Encyclopedia*. Zondervan Publishing House, 1998. ISBN 0-310-21538-2
* G. B. Tennyson (ed.), *Owen Barfield on C.S. Lewis*. Wesleyan University Press, 1989. ISBN 0-8195-5233-X.
* Richard J. Wagner. *C.S. Lewis and Narnia for Dummies*. For Dummies, 2005. ISBN 0-7645-8381-6
* Andrew Walker, Patrick James (ed.), *Rumours of Heaven: Essays in Celebration of C.S. Lewis*, Guildford: Eagle, 1998, ISBN 0863472508
* Chad Walsh, *C. S. Lewis: Apostle to the Skeptics*. Macmillan, 1949.
* Chad Walsh, *The Literary Legacy of C. S. Lewis*. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1979. ISBN 0-15-652785-5.
* George Watson (ed.), *Critical Essays on C. S. Lewis*. Scolar Press, 1992. ISBN 0-85967-853-9
* Michael White, *C.S. Lewis: The Boy Who Chronicled Narnia*. Abacus, 2005. ISBN 0-349-11625-3
* Erik J. Wielenberg, *God and the Reach of Reason*. Cambridge University Press, 2007. ISBN 978-0-521-70710-7
* A. N. Wilson, *C. S. Lewis: A Biography*. W. W. Norton, 1990. ISBN 0-393-32340-4

## External links

* Honest Ulsterman article on Lewis
* Article on Britannica
* The Narnia Fandom wiki
* C.S. Lewis society of California
* Lewisiana
* Wikisource - C.S. Lewis
* Into the Wardrobe
* C.S. Lewis Today.com (Australian site)
* YouTube video
* CS Lewis Doodle, a YouTube channel which animates several of his essays and written works.

## References

1. ↑ [1]
2. ↑ https://www.cslewis.com/us/books/
3. ↑ https://www.cslewis.com/us/about-cs-lewis/
4. ↑ Richard B. Cunningham, C. S. Lewis: Defender of the Faith, Wipf and Stock Publishers (2008), p. 14
5. ↑ C. S. Lewis, *Surprised by Joy;* Harvest Books (1966) p.107
6. ↑ Wayne Martindale, *Beyond the Shadowlands: C. S. Lewis on Heaven and Hell*, Crossway, 2005. p 52
7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Lewis, C.S. Collected Letters, Volume 1: Family Letters, 1905–1931. London: HarperCollins Publishers, 2000. 59.
8. ↑ Letter to Arthur Greeves, in Walter Hooper ed., *The Collected Letters of C. S. Lewis, Vol. 1: Family Letters, 1905–1931* (New York: HarperCollins, 2004), pp. 564–65. ISBN 0-06-072763-2
9. ↑ Yeats appeal wasn't exclusively Irish: he was also a major "magical opponent" of famed English occultist Aleister Crowley, as noted extensively throughout Lawrence Sutin's *Do what thou wilt : a life of Aleister Crowley*. New York: MacMillan (St. Martins). cf. pp. 56–78. See also Yeats (main article); and King, Francis (1978). *The Magical World of Aleister Crowley*. New York: Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, ISBN 0698108841.
10. ↑ Thomas C. Peters, *Simply C. S. Lewis: A Beginner's Guide to the Life and Works of C. S. Lewis*, Crossway, 1997. p 70
11. ↑ Letter to Arthur Greeves, in Walter Hooper ed., *The Collected Letters of C. S. Lewis, Vol. 1: Family Letters, 1905–1931* (New York: HarperCollins, 2004), p. 310. ISBN 0-06-072763-2
12. ↑ Clare, David. "C.S. Lewis: An Irish Writer". Irish Sudies review. Vol. 18, No. 1, February 2010, p. 21-22.
13. ↑ History of the Old Inn at Crawfordsburn. Retrieved on 8 April 2009.
14. ↑ Lewis, C.S. All My Road Before Me: The Diary of C.S. Lewis, 1922–1927. Ed. Walter Hooper. London: HarperCollins Publishers, 1993. 93.
15. ↑ Wilson, A.N. C.S. Lewis: A Biography. London: Harper Perennial, 1991. xi.
16. ↑ Clare, David. "C.S. Lewis: An Irish Writer". Irish Sudies review. Vol. 18, No. 1, February 2010, p. 24.
17. ↑ Paul Stevens, 'Reforming Empire: Protestant Colonialism and Conscience in British Literature', *Modern Philology*, Vol. 103 Issue 1 (August 2005), pp. 137–8, citing Humphrey Carpenter, *The Inklings* (London: Allen & Unwin, 1978), pp. 50–52, 206–7.
18. ↑ Narrative Poems. C.S. Lewis. Walter Hooper ed., Fount Paperbacks, London, 1969.
19. ↑ Beebe discovers unpublished C.S. Lewis manuscript : University News Service : Texas State University. Txstate.edu (8 July 2009). Retrieved on 10 March 2010.
20. ↑ "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945". *The Times*. 5 January 2008. Retrieved on 1 February 2010.
21. ↑ "CS Lewis, Chronicles of Narnia author, honoured in Poets' corner". The Telegraph. Retrieved 24 February 2013
22. ↑ A Secular Fantasy – The flawed but fascinating fiction of Philip Pullman, by Cathy Young. Reason.com. Retrieved on 8 April 2009.
23. ↑ Philip Pullman by Peter Hitchens. The Mail on Sunday, 27 January 2002, page 63. Retrieved on 8 April 2009.
24. ↑ Bruce L. Edwards, *C.S. Lewis: life, works, and legacy*, Greenwood Publishing Group, 2007. pp 305–307
25. ↑ Oxford University C. S. Lewis Society. lewisinoxford.googlepages.com.
26. ↑ "Parish to push sainthood for Thurgood Marshall", *USA Today*, 27 January 2006. Retrieved on 28 April 2010.
27. ↑ "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945". *The Times*. 5 January 2008. Retrieved on 1 February 2010.
28. ↑ Pratt, 1998.
29. ↑ Clive Staples Lewis, People, History, Westminster Abbey. Web, July 12, 2016.
30. ↑ A Secular Fantasy – The flawed but fascinating fiction of Philip Pullman, by Cathy Young. Reason.com. Retrieved on 8 April 2009.
31. ↑ Philip Pullman by Peter Hitchens. The Mail on Sunday, 27 January 2002, page 63. Retrieved on 8 April 2009.
32. ↑ Bruce L. Edwards, *C.S. Lewis: life, works, and legacy*, Greenwood Publishing Group, 2007. pp 305–307
33. ↑ Oxford University C. S. Lewis Society. lewisinoxford.googlepages.com.
34. ↑ The Great Divorce. IMDb (2011). Retrieved on 7 October 2010.

This page uses content from **Wikichristian.org**. The original article was at Lewis **C.S. Lewis**. The list of authors can be seen in the Lewis&action=history **page history**. As with the Religion-wiki, the text of Wikichristian.org is available under the CC-BY-SA.