C. S. Lewis

From New World Encyclopedia

Clive Staples Lewis (29 November 1898 – 22 November1963), known for his writings as C. S. Lewis and by his friends and associates as Jack, was a famous Irish author and novelist. His friend Owen Barfield said that C.S. Lewis could be broken down into three very different and distinct C.S. Lewises—the first was the role he played as a distinguished Oxford scholar and teacher, the second as a popular author of science fiction and children's novels, and the third as a highly religious spokesman and writer of Christian apologetics Lewis is most famous for his children's series entitled The Chronicles of Narnia. The writings of C.S. Lewis have impacted not only the country of England, but have spread across the globe, bringing values and ideas to people everywhere. His books and writings continue to be translated in many language and are finding a greater audience than ever. His writings not only inspire a number of children who continue to discover his imaginative stories, but also a growing number of adults find themselves immersed in his commentaries on human nature and the human condition.

Early Life

Clive Staples Lewis was born in Belfast, Ireland on November 29, 1898 to Albert James Lewis and Flora Augusta Hamilton Lewis. His parents were dedicated members of the Church of Ireland and raised Lewis and his elder brother, Warren Hamilton Lewis (Warnie) in that faith. His father worked as a solicitor and his mother was a very promising mathematician. Both parents, but especially Flora, had a great love of books. She taught both of her children to love books and learning, encourageing them to learn Latin and French. Lewis's parents extensive library gave him the luxury of reading book after book, allowing his imagination to come alive, he often noted that he felt much more comfortable in the various lands of the past described in his novels, then he did in technological world of the 20th century.


At a young age Lewis fell in love with the world created by Beatrix Potter and her stories about animals talking and acting as humans. He and his brother, Warnie, would spend hours together creating their own world inhabited and run by animals, they called this the world of Boxen. Lewis loved to dress up the family pet, Jacksie, from whom he took his nickname. When Lewis was four, his dog was hit by a car and died. After this, Lewis declared to all that his name was now Jacksie and he kept firm to this resolution, not answering to anything else. This name eventually became Jacks, and then finally, Jack. When he was six and Warnie was nine, the little family moved to Leeborough or Little Lea, a new house located in Strandtown.


C.S. Lewis was blessed with a very happy childhood, until tragedy struck unexpectedly. When little Jack was just nine years old his mother passed away from cancer. It was the aftermath of his mother's death that eventually led Lewis to ask questions about the meaning and purpose of life, and his conversion to Christianity. The beauty and tranquility of the Lewis house was shattered and the three men left were unsure of how to continue without Flora. Albert dealt with his loss by sending Lewis and Warnie to boarding school. With both boys away, he was able to wallow in his grief. Lewis, who before this time had been educated by his mother and various tutors, left home in 1908 and went to the Wynyard School in Watford, Hertfordshire. This hard time in the boys life was accentuated by the cruelity of the school. The headmaster was a man named Robert "Oldie" Capron, a man so cruel, so abusive, and so unpredictable that many who knew him believed him to be insane. The school soon closed, Capron claimed it was lack of pupils, but this lack was certainly due to the harsh methods he implimented. It was while Lewis was being treated so harshly that he found solace and comfort in writing. He wrote about fantasy lands and kind characters, thus escaping from the school through his imagination. Lewis would refer to his time at this school in his autobiographical novel, Surprised By Joy, in which he renamed the school "Belsen" after the World War II concentration camp.


C.S. Lewis went on to attend several other scholastic institutions, before finally taking charge of his own education. He attended the nearby Campbell College for a few months until illness made it impossible for him to stay. The educators and doctors felt that Lewis would benefit from time spend in the health-resort town of Malvern, Worcestershire and he was enrolled in the prep-school cherbourg House (which Lewis knew as "Chartres"). It was during this time that Lewis officially denounced his Christian faith, although the trial of his mother's death along with his unanswered questions about the universer were the main contributing factors in his decision. Lewis went on to spend the 1913 school year at Malvern College, until eventually returning home to Belfast and remaining there until 1917. Along with being tutored by William T. Kirkpatrick, the former headmaster of Lurgan College, Lewis attributes his education to the family library. In Surprised by Joy Lewis says, "I am the product of long corridors, empty sunlit rooms, upstairs indoor silences, attics explored in solitude, distant noises of gurgling cisterns and pipes, and the noise of wind under the tiles. Also of endless books. There were books in the study, books in the drawing-room, books in the cloakroom, books (two deep) in the great bookcase on the landing, books in a bedroom, books piled as high as my shoulder in the cistern attic, books of all kinds reflecting every transient stage of my parents' interests, books readable and unreadable, books suitable for a child and books most empathically not. Nothing was forbidden me. In the seemingly endless rainy afternoons I took volume after volume from the shelves..."


During these teenage years, Lewis not only read, but became fascinated with the songs of Richard Wagner and the legends of the North Wagner described in his operas. The music of Wagner along with the beauties of nature around him gave him an intense longing, a deep desire he later called "joy", and this became a main focal point of study for him. This solitary time at home also took Lewis back to his writings, which had matured since his youthful days depicting various scenes and tales of Boxen. He began to explore with different mediums, and it was during this time that he wrote epic poetry and tried his hand at writing an opera. Both of these endeavors centered around his love of Norse mythology. He also developed a great love for the Greek literature and mythology he studied with Kirkpatrick (or as Lewis referred to him, "The Great Knock"). With Kirkpatricks sharp skills, Lewis became adept in debate and clear, focused reasoning. With all of these many facets of education under his belt, Lewis was the recipient of a scholarhip from University College, Oxford in 1916, this coincided with the events of World War I. Lewis did not immediately begin college, but instead enlised with the British Army in 1917, where he was commissioned as an officer in the third Battalion, Somerset Light Infantry.

During his training, Lewis made an acquaintance that would change his life. "Paddy" Moore was Lewis's roommate during the training period and had become friends with Lewis, Paddy introduced Lewis to his mother, Jane King Moore, and she took him under her wing, giving him great love and kindness, treating him like a son. At the young age of nineteen, Lewis was sent to the front line of the Somme Valley in France, and on April 15, 1917, he suffered an injury during the Battal of Arras. In addition to his physical injury, Lewis found himself battling depression and a severe case of homesickness. While in the hospital he found himself visited by Paddy Moore's mother, Jane. A lasting friendship formed and Lewis took to her kindness immediately, feeling acutely hurt by his father who refused to visit him in the hospital. Lewis made a promise to Paddy one day, that should Paddy die, then Lewis would care for Jane and see to her needs. By October of the same year, Lewis had made a full recovery from his wound, but his experiences of war and battle were never forgotten. Paddy Moore did die in battle and Lewis kept his promise, often referring to Jane as his mother. However, as Jane aged and grew senile, the relationship was difficult, but Lewis kept his promise, visiting her nearly everyday when she was put in a senior home.


In December of 1918, he returned home with an honorable discharge and returned to his studies. He moved in with Jane Moore, even though he also kept rooms at his college. 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". Finally in 1930, Lewis and his brother Warnie moved into "The Kilns", a large house with a wardrobe that is depicted in the Chronicles of Narnia. The house is located in Risinghurst, Headington (a suburb of Oxford). The gentlemen took and aged Jane to live with them, and all three contributed to the purchase of the house. Upon Warren's death in 1973, the house passed to Jane Moore's daughter, "Lady Dunbar of Hempriggs]].

In the next few years C.S. Lewis distinguished himself be receiving several different awards including: 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.


oore 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.

In later years Moore suffered from dementia and was eventually moved into a nursing home where she died in 1951. Lewis visited her every day while she was in the home.

"My Irish life"

Plaque on a park-bench in Bangor, County Down

Lewis experienced a certain cultural shock when living 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."

From his youth, Lewis had immersed himself in Irish mythology and literature and expressed an interest in the Irish language. He later 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."

He was surprised to find his English peers indifferent to Yeats and the Celtic Revival movement. In describing his time at Oxford he 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."

Perhaps to help cope with his environment, Lewis even 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."

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

Early in his career, Lewis considered sending his work to the major Dublin publishers. In a letter to a friend he wrote: "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.

Conversion to Christianity

Although raised in a churchgoing family in the Church of Ireland, Lewis was an atheist for much of his youth. His separation from Christianity began when he started to view his religion as a chore and as a duty. He also gained an interest in the occult as his studies expanded as 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.

When he later wrote an account of his adult reconversion to Christianity, under the title Surprised by Joy, he said that he had been "very angry with God for not existing". Some interpret this to mean that he did not so much reject the existence of God as harbour anger at God for the unfairness in life. This interpretation appears to be contradicted by a letter to a friend, in which he said: "all religions, no, mythologies to give them their proper name, have no proof whatsoever!" Later in his life, however, he began to believe in a deeper experience of some fundamentals of Western thought.

Influenced by arguments with his Oxford colleague and Roman Catholic friend J. R. R. Tolkien, and by G.K. Chesterton's book, The Everlasting Man, he slowly rediscovered Christianity. In 1929, he came to believe in the existence of God although he fought greatly against it. He describes 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."

In 1931, after a lengthy discussion with Tolkien and another close friend, Hugo Dyson, he reconverted to Christianity and (to the regret of Tolkien) joined the Church of England. He noted, "I came into Christianity kicking and screaming."

Although an Anglican, Lewis's Catholic leanings appeared to influence his beliefs; he accepted the Catholic doctrine of mortal sin, implying that he believed a Christian could lose their salvation, a belief somewhat at odds with reformed views on justification. This opinion was thoroughly explored in Lewis's book The Screwtape Letters. Template:DisputedAssertion 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 Catholic theologian John Henry Newman's approach in "The Dream of Gerontius". It seems likely that Newman in turn had taken his position from that found in Catherine of Genoa's "Purgation and Purgatory".

Career as a scholar

Lewis taught as a fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, for nearly thirty years, from 1925 to 1954, and later was the first Professor of Medieval and Renaissance Literature at the University of Cambridge and a fellow of Magdalene College, Cambridge. Using this position, he argued that there was no such thing as an English Renaissance. Much of his scholarly work concentrated on the later Middle Ages, especially its use of allegory. His The Allegory of Love (1936) helped reinvigorate the serious study of late medieval narratives like the Roman de la Rose. Lewis wrote several prefaces to old works of literature and poetry, like Layamon's Brut. His preface to John Milton’s poem Paradise Lost is still one of the most important criticisms of that work. His last academic work, The Discarded Image, an Introduction to Medieval and Renaissance Literature (1964), is a summary of the medieval world view, the "discarded image" of the cosmos in his title.

Lewis was a prolific writer and a member of the literary discussion society The Inklings with his friends J. R. R. Tolkien, Charles Williams, and Owen Barfield. At Oxford he was the tutor of, among other undergraduates, poet John Betjeman and critic Kenneth Tynan. Curiously, the religious and conservative Betjeman detested Lewis, whereas the anti-Establishment Tynan retained a life-long admiration for him.

Of J. R. R. Tolkien, Lewis writes in Surprised by Joy (chapter X1V, p173):

"When I began teaching for the English Faculty, I made two other friends, both Christians (these queer people seemed now to pop up on every side) who were later to give me much help in getting over the last stile. They were H. V. V. Dyson ... and J. R. R. Tolkien. Friendship with the latter marked the breakdown of two old prejudices. At my first coming into the world I had been (implicitly) warned never to trust a Papist, and at my first coming into the English Faculty (explicitly) never to trust a philologist. Tolkien was both.

Career as a writer of fiction

In addition to his scholarly work, Lewis wrote a number of popular novels, including his science-fiction Space Trilogy, his fantasy Narnia books, and various other novels, most containing allegories on Christian themes such as sin, the Fall, and redemption. (For more information about those works, see their individual articles.)

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 recondite nature - as to merely read it requires a familiarity with classical sources far beyond the capabilities of the typical reader or reviewer.

Space Trilogy

His Space Trilogy or "Ransom Trilogy" novels 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 character of Ransom is generally agreed to be based, in part, on Tolkien. The minor character Jules, from That Hideous Strength, is an obvious caricature of H. G. Wells. Many of the ideas presented in the books, particularly in That Hideous Strength, are dramatizations of arguments made more formally in Lewis’s The Abolition of Man.

The Chronicles of Narnia

The Narnia stories are a series of seven fantasy novels for children that are by far the most popular of Lewis's works. The books have many Christian themes and describe the adventures of a group of children who visit a magical land called Narnia. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, which was the first published and the most popular book of the series, has been adapted for both stage and screen. Published between 1950 and 1956, the Chronicles of Narnia borrow from Greek, Roman, and Celtic mythology as well as from traditional English and Irish fairy tales. Lewis reportedly based his depiction of Narnia in the novels on the geography and scenery of the Mourne Mountains in County Down, Northern Ireland. Downhill House was his inspiration for the Witch's Castle. Lewis cited George MacDonald's christian fairy tales as an influence in writing the series.

Other works

He wrote quite a few works on Heaven and Hell. The Great Divorce is a short but entertaining novel. Those in Hell can take a bus ride to Heaven, where they meet some of those they had known on earth. The deal is that they can stay (in which case they can call the place where they had come from Purgatory, not Hell): but many find it not to their taste. The title is a reference to William Blake's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. This work deliberately echoes two other more famous works with a similar theme: the Divine Comedy of Dante Aligheri, and Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. Another short novel, The Screwtape Letters, consists of 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 — many believe (as he did) that it is his most mature and masterful work of fiction, but it 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’ 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.

Career as a writer on Christianity

In addition to his career as an English professor and an author of fiction, Lewis also wrote a number of books about Christianity — perhaps most famously, Mere Christianity. In 2000, Mere Christianity was named the best book of the twentieth century by Christianity Today magazine, after the magazine asked 100 of its contributors and Church leaders to vote for best book. He was very much interested in presenting a reasonable case for the truth of Christianity. Mere Christianity, The Problem of Pain, and Miracles were all concerned, to one degree or another, with refuting popular objections to Christianity. He also became known as a popular lecturer and broadcaster, and some of his writing (including much of Mere Christianity) originated as scripts for radio talks or lectures.

He has become popularly known as The Apostle to the Sceptics because he says he originally approached religious belief as a sceptic but was converted by the evidence. Consequently, his books on Christianity examine common difficulties in accepting Christianity, such as "How could a good God allow pain to exist in the world?", which he examined in detail in The Problem of Pain.

Lewis also wrote an autobiography entitled Surprised by Joy, which describes his conversion. (It was written before he met his wife, Joy Gresham; the title of the book came from the first line of a poem by William Wordsworth.) His essays and public speeches on Christian belief, many of which were collected in God in the Dock and The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses, remain popular today.

His most famous works, the Chronicles of Narnia, contain many strong Christian messages. These are often mistaken for allegory but, as Lewis himself said, are certainly not. Lewis is said to have stated that he wrote the novels when he wondered what it would be like if Jesus Christ was incarnated on another world or planet to save the souls of those inhabitants.

Trilemma

In the book Mere Christianity, Lewis famously criticized the idea that Jesus was a great moral teacher whose claims to divinity were false:

"I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronising nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to."

According to the argument, most people are willing to accept Jesus Christ as a great moral teacher, but the Gospels record that Jesus made many claims to divinity, either explicitly — ("I and the father are one." John 10:30; when asked by the High priest whether he was the Son of God, Jesus replied "It is as you said" Matthew 26:64) — or implicitly, by assuming authority only God could have ("the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins" Matthew 9:6). Lewis said there are three options:

  1. Jesus was telling falsehoods and knew it, and so he was a liar.
  2. Jesus was telling falsehoods but believed he was telling the truth, and so he was insane.
  3. Jesus was telling the truth, and so he was divine.

Lewis’s argument, which stems from the medieval aut deus aut malus homo ("either God or an evil man"), was later expanded by the Christian apologist Josh McDowell (in his book More than a Carpenter) to serve as a logical proof to Jesus’s divinity. It is from this latter development that the term "trilemma" actually comes. The term is often used to refer to both arguments, assuming that in fact they are one and the same. Various versions of both Lewis’s argument and McDowell’s have been extensively debated and frequently attacked by atheists for their importance to much accessible and orthodox Christian apologia. Atheists have attempted to dispute the truth of their premises as well as the validity of their structure. Nonetheless, for many people they remain significantly more logically compelling than attempted objections.

Portrayals of Lewis's life

Interest in Lewis has resulted in several biographies (including books written by close friends of Lewis, among them Roger Lancelyn Green and George Sayer), at least one play about his life, and a 1993 film, Shadowlands, based on an original stage and television play. The film fictionalizes his relationship with the American writer Joy Gresham, whom he met and married in London, only to watch her die slowly from bone cancer. Lewis’s book A Grief Observed describes his experience of bereavement in such a raw and personal fashion that Lewis originally released it under the pseudonym N.W. Clerk to keep readers from associating the book with him (ultimately too many friends recommended the book to Lewis as a method for dealing with his own grief, and he made his authorship public).

Lewis's death and legacy

A statue of C.S. Lewis in Belfast, United Kingdom

Lewis died on November 22 1963, exactly one week before his 65th birthday, at the Oxford home he shared with his brother, Warren. He is buried in the Headington Quarry Churchyard, Oxford. Media coverage of his death was overshadowed by news of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, which occurred on the same day, as did the death of author Aldous Huxley, author of Brave New World. (This coincidence was the inspiration for Peter Kreeft's book Between Heaven and Hell: A Dialog Somewhere Beyond Death with John F. Kennedy, C. S. Lewis, & Aldous Huxley.)

A bronze statue of Lewis looking into a wardrobe stands in Belfast's Holywood Arches.

Many books have been inspired by Lewis, including A Severe Mercy by his correspondent Sheldon Vanauken. The Chronicles Of Narnia have been particularly influential. Modern children's authors such as Daniel Handler (A Series of Unfortunate Events), Eoin Colfer (Artemis Fowl), Philip Pullman (His Dark Materials trilogy), and J. K. Rowling (Harry Potter) have been more or less influenced by Lewis's series. Authors of adult fantasy literature such as Tim Powers have also testified to being influenced by Lewis's work. In a number of these cases, such as that of Pullman (who has criticized Lewis[1]), the influence was negative.

Most of Lewis’s posthumous work has been edited by his literary executor, Walter Hooper. An independent Lewis scholar, the late Kathryn Lindskoog, argued in several books that Hooper's scholarship is not reliable and that he has made false statements and attributed forged works to Lewis. (See The Dark Tower.) Scholars in the field of Lewis studies are divided over whether these charges have been settled at all, and if so, in whose favour.

Lewis was strongly opposed to the creation of live-action versions of his works due to the technology at the time. His major concern was that the anthropomorphic animal characters "when taken out of narrative into actual visibility, always turn into buffoonery or nightmare". This was said in the context of the 1950s, when technology would not allow the special effects required to make a coherent, robust film version of Narnia. Whether or not Lewis would be happy with the CGI creations of The Chronicles of Narnia film series, naturally, cannot be known.

The song "The Earth Will Shake" performed by Thrice is based on one of his poems, and the band Sixpence None the Richer are named after a passage in Mere Christianity.

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)
  • 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»)
  • 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)
  • 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
  • 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)

Fiction

  • The Pilgrim's Regress (1933)
  • Space Trilogy
    • Out of the Silent Planet (1938)
    • Perelandra (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)

Books about C. S. Lewis

  • John Beversluis, C. S. Lewis and the Search for Rational Religion. Eerdmans, 1985. ISBN 0802800467
  • Humphrey Carpenter, The Inklings: C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, Charles Williams and their friends. George Allen & Unwin, 1978. ISBN 0048090115
  • 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 0873381386
  • Michael Coren, The Man Who Created Narnia: The Story of C.S. Lewis. Eerdmans Pub Co, Reprint edition 1996. ISBN 0802838227
  • 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
  • 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 1902694139
  • Colin Duriez, Tolkien and C.S. Lewis: The Gift of Friendship. Paulist Press, 2003. ISBN 1587680262
  • Bruce L. Edwards, Not a Tame Lion: The Spiritual World of Narnia. Tyndale. 2005.
  • Bruce L. Edwards, Further Up and Further In: Understanding C. S. Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Broadman and Holman, 2005.
  • Jocelyn Gibb (ed.), Light on C. S. Lewis. Geoffrey Bles, 1965 & Harcourt Brace Jovanovich 1976. ISBN 0156520001
  • Douglas Gilbert & Clyde Kilby, C.S. Lewis: Images of His World. Eerdmans, 1973 & 2005. ISBN 0802828000
  • David Graham (ed.), We Remember C.S. Lewis. Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2001. ISBN 0805422994
  • Roger Lancelyn Green & Walter Hooper, C. S. Lewis: A Biography. Fully revised & expanded edition. HarperCollins, 2002. ISBN 0006281648
  • Douglas Gresham, Jack's Life: A Memory of C.S. Lewis. Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2005. ISBN 0805432469
  • Douglas Gresham, Lenten Lands: My Childhood with Joy Davidman and C.S. Lewis. HarperSanFrancisco, 1994. ISBN 0060634472
  • William Griffin, C.S. Lewis: The Authentic Voice. (Formerly C.S. Lewis: A Dramatic Life) Lion, 2005. ISBN 0745952089
  • 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 0006278000
  • Walter Hooper, Through Joy and Beyond: A Pictorial Biography of C. S. Lewis. Macmillan, 1982. ISBN 0025536702
  • Alan Jacobs, The Narnian: The Life and Imagination of C.S. Lewis. HarperSanFrancisco, 2005. ISBN 0060766905
  • Carolyn Keefe, C.S. Lewis: Speaker & Teacher. Zondervan, 1979. ISBN 0310267811
  • Clyde S. Kilby, The Christian World of C. S. Lewis. Eerdmans, 1964, 1995. ISBN 0802808719
  • Kathryn Lindskoog, Light in the Shadowlands: Protecting the Real C. S. Lewis. Multnomah Pub., 1994. ISBN 0880706953
  • W.H. Lewis (ed), Letters of C.S. Lewis. Geoffrey Bles, 1966. ISBN 0002424576
  • Susan Lowenberg, C. S. Lewis: A Reference Guide 1972–1988. Hall & Co., 1993. ISBN 0816118469
  • Wayne Mardindale & Jerry Root, The Quotable Lewis. Tyndale House Publishers, 1990. ISBN 0842351159
  • Markus Mühling, "A Theological Journey into Narnia. An Analysis of the Message beneath the Text", Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2005, ISBN 3525604238
  • Joseph Pearce, C. S. Lewis and the Catholic Church. Ignatius Press, 2003. ISBN 0898709792
  • Thomas C. Peters, Simply C.S. Lewis. A Beginner's Guide to His Life and Works. Kingsway Publications, 1998. ISBN 0854767622
  • Justin Phillips, C.S. Lewis at the BBC: Messages of Hope in the Darkness of War. Marshall Pickering, 2003. ISBN 0007104375
  • Victor Reppert, C.S. Lewis's Dangerous Idea: In Defense of the Argument from Reason. InterVarsity Press, 2003. ISBN 0830827323
  • George Sayer, Jack: C. S. Lewis and His Times. Macmillan, 1988. ISBN 0333433629
  • Peter J. Schakel, Imagination and the Arts in C. S. Lewis: Journeying to Narnia and Other Worlds. University of Missouri Press, 2002. ISBN 082621407X
  • Peter J. Schakel. Reason and Imagination in C. S. Lewis: A Study of "Till We Have Faces." Available online. Eerdmans, 1984. ISBN 0802819982
  • Peter J. Schakel, ed. The Longing for a Form: Essays on the Fiction of C. S. Lewis. Kent State University Press, 1977. ISBN 0873382048
  • Peter J. Schakel and Charles A. Huttar, ed. Word and Story in C. S. Lewis. University of Missouri Press, 1991. ISBN 082620760X
  • Stephen Schofield. In Search of C.S. Lewis. Bridge Logos Pub. 1983. ISBN 088270544X
  • Jeffrey D. Schultz and John G. West, Jr. (eds.), The C.S. Lewis Readers' Encyclopedia. Zondervan Publishing House, 1998. ISBN 0310215382
  • G. B. Tennyson (ed.), Owen Barfield on C.S. Lewis. Wesleyan University Press, 1989. ISBN 081955233X.
  • Richard J. Wagner. C.S. Lewis and Narnia for Dummies. For Dummies, 2005. ISBN 0764583816
  • 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 0156527855.
  • George Watson (ed.), Critical Essays on C. S. Lewis. Scolar Press, 1992. ISBN 085957853
  • A. N. Wilson, C. S. Lewis: A Biography. W. W. Norton, 1990. ISBN 0393323404
  • White, Michael, C.S. Lewis: The Boy Who Chronicled Narnia. Abacus, 2005. ISBN 0349116253

See also

  • Christian apologetics (field of study concerned with the defence of Christianity)
  • The Inklings
  • Pauline Baynes

External links

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Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:
  • Works by C. S. Lewis. Project Gutenberg
  • C.S. Lewis Foundation
  • Marion E. Wade Center at Wheaton College — has the world’s largest collection of Lewis's works and works about him
  • [2] Taylor University, Upland, Indiana, has the world's largest private collection of C. S. Lewis first editions, letters, manuscripts, and ephemera—the Edwin W. Brown Collection

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