C.S. Lewis

"The Searcher", C.S. Lewis (1898-1963) centenary stature by Ross Wilson, Belfast. Photo by Kindonelly. Licensed under Creative Commons, courtesy Flickr.

C.S. Lewis
Born	Clive Staples Lewis 29 1898(1898-Template:MONTHNUMBER-29) Belfast, Ireland
Died	22 1963(1963-Template:MONTHNUMBER-22) (aged 64) Oxford, England
Occupation	Novelist, scholar, broadcaster
Nationality	British
Genres	Fantasy, science fiction, Christian apologetics, children's literature
Notable work(s)	The Chronicles of Narnia, Mere Christianity, The Allegory of Love, The Screwtape Letters, The Space Trilogy, Till We Have Faces
Signature	File:CS Lewis Signature.svg

Clive Staples Lewis (29 November 1898 - 22 November 1963) was an Irish-born English poet, novelist, academic, and Christian apologist.

Life

Overview

Lewis (known to his friends and family as "Jack") was a close friend of J.R.R. Tolkien, and both authors were leading figures in the English faculty at Oxford University and in the informal Oxford literary group known as the "Inklings". According to his memoir Surprised by Joy, Lewis had been baptised in the Church of Ireland (part of the Anglican Communion) at birth, but fell away from his faith during his adolescence. Owing to the influence of Tolkien and other friends, at the age of 32 Lewis returned to the Anglican Communion, becoming "a very ordinary layman of the Church of England". His faith had a profound effect on his work, and his wartime radio broadcasts on the subject of Christianity brought him wide acclaim.

He is well known for his fictional work, especially The Screwtape Letters, The Chronicles of Narnia and The Space Trilogy. The books that make up The Chronicles of Narnia have sold the most and have been popularised on stage, TV, radio and cinema.

Youth and education

Lewis was born 29 November 1898 in Dundela Villas, Belfast, the younger son of Albert James Lewis, police solicitor and unionist activist, and his wife, Florence (Flora) Augusta (daughter of Rev. Thomas Hamilton), who was the first female mathematics graduate from Queen's University Belfast (QUB).The Hamilton family was related to the Staples of Lissan House, co. Tyrone (hence Lewis's middle name). He had an elder brother, Warren Hamilton Lewis (1895–1973), known as ‘Warnie’; from the age of 4 Lewis himself was known as ‘Jack’.

Lewis was initially tutored at home by his mother and a governess. The 2 boys grew up at the centre of a large extended family, including Lewises, Hamiltons, and Ewarts (Flora's sister had married the linen industrialist Sir William Quartus Ewart). This clan provided Lewis with his earliest insights into the foibles of human nature; he retained contact (attenuated by English education and residence) with the family network for the rest of his life.

Flora Lewis died of cancer on 23 August 1908. Albert's frightening emotional outbursts under the pressure of grief, and subsequent clumsy attempts to befriend his sons without realising that their interests might be different from his own, alienated the boys. They withdrew into literature and an intensely felt play world centred on ‘the little end room’ in the family home on the Holywood Road. This also became a refuge from school life.

Shortly after his mother's death, Lewis was dispatched to Wynyard preparatory school, Hertfordshire, which Warnie had attended since 1905. Their parents, encouraged by Albert's old headmaster W.T. Kirkpatrick, had decided that an English boarding-school education would benefit their children. Wynyard, which Lewis calls ‘Belsen’ in his autobiography, Surprised by joy, was disintegrating as the headmaster grew violently insane; the boys were cruelly treated and learned little.

After Wynyard closed in 1910 Lewis spent a term at Campbell College, Belfast, then went to Cherbourg House, the preparatory school for Malvern College, Worcestershire. Here Lewis's intellectual promise became apparent, but he was deeply antagonised by the school's homosexual subculture, games cult, and tyrannical rule by the older boys; he also became an atheist after a period of spiritual confusion.

Lewis won a scholarship to Malvern in 1913, but withdrew after a year and was sent to receive tuition from W.T. Kirkpatrick at Great Bookham, Surrey (1914–17). Kirkpatrick fostered Lewis's taste for logical argument, laid the foundations of his scholarly prowess, and advised Albert that his son's talent was literary and academic. The Lewis brothers developed a love of the English countryside and a sense of the provinciality of their own background, which further divided them from their father (now nicknamed ‘Pudaitabird’ from his pronunciation of ‘potato’).

In 1914 Lewis befriended Arthur Greeves, the sickly son of a long-established Belfast linen family, who shared his fondness for ‘northern’ literature, such as the librettos of Wagner's operas and the works of William Morris; Lewis's letters to Greeves provide important evidence of his intellectual development (including a conscious sadism). Like Forrest Reid (qv), rival guru of Arthur Greeves, and a possible influence on Lewis's The magician's nephew, 1955), Lewis is most of all a product of Edwardian Belfast, in his reaction against its cultural limitations and in his quest for imaginative escape.

The mature Lewis loved the Down countryside and retained many ties of family and friendship with Northern Ireland, but he spoke of Orangemen as representing a political deformity of religion (though at a crucial moment in That Hideous Strength, a good character hums an Orange ballad). His letters home in the 1914–1921 period often referred to the political situation and he praised the Ulster division's charge at the battle of the Somme on 1 July 1916, perhaps because it would please his father.

In the mature Lewis suspicions of Irish catholic ‘bograts’ and ‘papists’ combined with uneasy awareness of historic wrongs. His defence in The allegory of love of the protestant sensibility of Edmund Spenser notes that the cruelties in which the poet participated in Ireland corrupted his moral sense and his literary responsiveness. His moral outrage at the prospect that space travel might spread the cruelties of empire to the stars reflects early modern studies, as well as reaction against jingoism. Prince Caspian's discovery that he is the descendant of pirates who conquered Narnia, massacred the native population, and pretended that they never existed is not simply a critique of ahistoric rationalism. It is occasionally suggested that a Hibernocentric Lewis seeking the ‘Celtic twilight’ instead of the Nordic myths might have been a greater artist, but he might also have been a provincial crank, as were several of his intellectually frustrated relatives.

In April 1917 Lewis was admitted to University College, Oxford, to read classics, but put off taking up his studies to join the British army on 8 June 1917. Although as an Irishman he was exempt from conscription, he felt a sense of obligation, and his decision involved a slight possibility that he might help to suppress another Irish rising. While billeted in Keble College, Lewis made the acquaintance of E.F.C. (‘Paddy’) Moore, and his mother Jane King Moore (née Atkins, 1872–1951), who had separated from her husband; Mrs Moore came from a Church of Ireland clerical family. Lewis and Moore promised each other that if one of them died the other would look after the survivor's parent; Lewis became infatuated with Mrs Moore, whom he later treated as a substitute mother.

On 25 September 1917 Lewis became a 2nd lieutenant in the 3rd Somerset light infantry, and went to France on 17 November. In February 1918 he was hospitalised with trench fever; at the battle of Arras on 15 April he was wounded in the leg, arm, and chest by shrapnel and spent the rest of the war as a convalescent. Paddy Moore had died in action on 24 March.

As an ex-serviceman Lewis was excused several matriculation requirements on his return to Oxford. He took a 1st in classical honour moderations in 1920, a 1st in greats (classics and philosophy) in 1922, and a 1st in English language and literature in 1923. He was appointed a lecturer in philosophy at University College in 1924, before being elected the following May to a fellowship in English at Magdalen College.

1919-1939

From 1919 Lewis shared a household with Mrs Moore and her daughter, Maureen. Albert Lewis, whose financial support had made it possible for Lewis to remain at Oxford, was deliberately deceived about his son's domestic circumstances.

After Lewis achieved financial independence their relationship mellowed. Albert Lewis died of cancer on 25 September 1929; in later life Lewis expressed deep remorse for his neglect of the old man.

After the sale of the Belfast house Lewis and Warnie joined Mrs Moore in acquiring a house, The Kilns, at Headington, on the eastern outskirts of Oxford; Lewis and the Moores took up residence there in October 1930, joined by Warnie in December 1932 after his retirement from the Royal Army Service Corps. The arrangement continued until 1951.

Lewis's relationship with Mrs Moore has provoked much speculation; Lewis refused to discuss it with anyone. Some acquaintances (including Warnie Lewis) saw her as selfish and exploitative; others saw her as a kind and motherly figure whose efforts were frequently misdirected. All agree that when Lewis rediscovered his faith she resented it; she blamed God for the death of her son and had become a bitter atheist. In her last years she underwent severe physical (possibly mental) deterioration; Lewis nursed her devotedly.

Mrs Moore clearly inspired Screwtape's account of the patient's relationship with his mother (which, Lewis remarks, may be distorted by diabolic wishful thinking), and may have been behind Orual, the central figure of Lewis's retelling of the story of Cupid and Psyche, Till we have faces (1956), whose possessive love of her sister Psyche turns to resentment of Psyche's relationship with the god. Mrs Moore has been plausibly identified both as the vengeful mother in The great divorce, who comes up from hell to blame heaven for denying her access to her son, and as the ‘great lady’ in the same book, whose love extends even to the self-dramatising husband who tormented her and damned himself.

During the 1920s Lewis abandoned atheism for a form of philosophical idealism, influenced by the English neo-Hegelian school and expressing what became a key point of his apologetics – the view that the statement ‘Life is meaningless’ is self-refuting as it presents all statements (itself included) as meaningless. As he engaged imaginatively with the Christian world view through his medieval studies, his favourite authors such as George MacDonald and G.K. Chesterton, and his discussions with Christian friends such as J.R.R. Tolkien, Lewis found it growing uncomfortably plausible. In 1929 Lewis reverted to belief in a personal God, and on 28 September 1931 accepted Christianity.

In his 30s Lewis acquired a significant reputation as a scholar with the publication of The allegory of love (1936), and established himself as a teacher. He was commissioned to write English Literature in the Sixteenth Century (published 1954) for the Oxford History of English Literature series. He developed a persona as a ‘plain, blunt man’ asking awkward questions, which drew on Kirkpatrick's forceful dialectic and his father's police-court manner. He dressed shabbily and presented the general appearance of a short, chubby countryman (he was fond of walking tours). He showed no aptitude for administration, and his resistance to any reorientation of the English syllabus at Oxford towards more modern literature added to the enemies he made by his increasingly outspoken Christianity and his hectoring, sometimes vindictive, manner of debate. The rivalries of the Magdalen common room found their way into That Hideous Strength (1945).

From 1933 Lewis became the dominant figure in a literary group, the Inklings, which met in the Eagle and Child pub to read and discuss members' literary work in progress. Lewis's role in electing a fellow Inkling to the Oxford chair of poetry over better-qualified opponents in 1938 further enraged his critics.

Of his prose fictions only The pilgrim's regress (1933) and Out of the silent planet (1938) appeared in this decade. Some of his friends attributed this relative lack of literary productivity to the demands of Mrs Moore, who frequently called him away from his work to perform menial domestic tasks.

1939-1954

C.S. Lewis. Photo by Arthur Strong, 1947. Courtesy Wikipedia.

The second world war was the backdrop to Lewis's most intense period of apologetics. In 1940 he published The problem of pain and in 1941 a journal called the Guardian serialised The Screwtape letters which were published as a book in 1942. He became nationally known through 4 series of radio talks on Christian subjects in 1941, 1942, and 1944; they were published as separate books, and later revised and combined as Mere Christianity (1952). He also published A preface to ‘Paradise Lost’ (1942), The abolition of man (1943), the planetary romances Perelandra (1943) and That hideous strength (1945), and The great divorce (serialised 1944–5, published 1946). Lewis also travelled the country giving talks on Christianity to RAF personnel; he played an important role in the wartime Christian revival. He saw the royalties from his apologetic works as a gift from God and distributed them in his generous and secretive personal charities.

Lewis's apologetics decreased in intensity after 1945 because of post-war teaching pressure, a desire to strike out new lines of enquiry, and his own philosophical difficulties symbolised by his encounter on 2 February 1948 with G.E.M. Anscombe, the catholic Wittgensteinian philosopher, at the Oxford Socratic Club. Anscombe challenged Lewis's argument in Miracles (1947) that naturalism was self-refuting as it rested on a confused view of causation. Lewis subsequently revised the book to address her criticisms.

Lewis's activities as a fervent Christian apologist, together with his public prominence during the war, may have antagonised academic colleagues in Oxford. Whatever the reasons, he failed to win appointment to the Merton chair of English literature in 1946, and was defeated by C. Day Lewis for the professorship of poetry in 1950.

Between 1948 and 1953 Lewis wrote The Chronicles of Narnia, 7 works of fantasy for children, which were published between 1950 and 1956: 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), and The last battle (1956).

Lewis's broadcasts and books brought him correspondence from a wide range of people seeking spiritual advice, which he answered conscientiously. (Helen) Joy Gresham née Davidman (1915–60), an American Jewish convert to Christianity, began writing to him in 1950 and met him on a long visit to England in 1952. When her marriage broke up owing to her husband's infidelity, she moved to England in 1953 with her 2 sons.

On 23 April 1956 Lewis married Joy Davidman in a registry office; it was a marriage of convenience to enable her to remain in Britain. In October she was diagnosed with advanced breast cancer which had spread to her bones, and this changed the nature of their relationship. Lewis approached the bishop of Oxford seeking permission for a church wedding on the grounds that her husband had been divorced before marrying her, but his appeal was rejected as incompatible with anglican church discipline.

An unofficial religious wedding was performed at Joy's hospital bed on 21 March 1957. Shortly afterwards her cancer went into remission; Lewis saw this as a miracle. A period of intense happiness followed, during which Lewis published Reflections on the psalms (1958), assisted by Joy and partly inspired by her Jewish heritage. In October 1959 Joy's cancer recurred; she died at Oxford on 13 July 1960.

Lewis saw his relationship with Joy as the central happiness of his life, which God gave and then took away; his attempts to make sense of her sufferings and his sorrow (including a recurrence of his old suspicion about a cosmic sadist) are examined in A grief observed (published under the pseudonym ‘N.W. Clerk’ in 1961). Some of Lewis's friends and admirers were lukewarm about Joy; they disliked her American forthrightness and suspected her of manipulating Lewis and leading him to claim divine exemption from the marital indissolubility he advocated for others.

Final years

In 1954, the year Lewis published English Literature in the Sixteenth Century (which was commissioned in the 1930s and eventually based on his Clark lectures delivered in Cambridge in 1944), he was appointed to the newly established chair of English medieval and renaissance literature at Cambridge and elected to a fellowship at Magdalene College. Despite a counter-offer from Oxford he took up the chair in Cambridge, which he held until 1963 and which released him from undergraduate tutorials and allowed him time to write. But he returned to his home outside Oxford at weekends and during vacations.

In 1961 Lewis was diagnosed with an enlarged prostate, which exacerbated an existing bladder problem, leading to a kidney condition; this in turn affected his heart. Despite declining health and the loss of the image-forming ability through which he had created fiction, Lewis continued to write literary criticism – An experiment in criticism (1961) and The discarded image (1964) (work based on his lecture notes on Spenser was published posthumously) – and devotional material – The four loves (1960) and Letters to Malcolm: chiefly on prayer (1964).

He resigned his professorship in August 1963 and died of a heart attack at his Oxford home on 22 November 1963.

He is buried in the churchyard of Holy Trinity Church, Headington, Oxford (Friends of Holy Trinity Church). Almost 10 years later, his brother Warren Hamilton "Warnie" Lewis, who died on 9 April 1973, was buried next to him.

Writing

Lewis wrote more than 30 books which have been translated into more than 30 languages and have sold millions of copies. In 2000 it was estimated that 1,000,000 copies of his work were sold every year.

His works have been constantly reprinted and his occasional writings have appeared in various collections. A consolidated edition of his non-literary essays appeared for his centenary in 1998.

Admirers often find it difficult to admit that Lewis had any shortcomings or held views differing from their own. Opponents often engage in what Lewis called ‘Bulverism’ – attributing his expressed views to real or supposed psychological flaws, thereby dismissing the possibility of taking them seriously. He is accused – with some justification – of brash anti-intellectualism, of misogyny, of social and political conservatism. Some orthodox Christians accuse him of stressing the otherness of God to an extent that diminishes the Incarnation; atheists claim his Platonizing Christianity defames this world.

Apologetics. Lewis's apologetics reflected an acute awareness that the majority of the British public were neither orthodox believers nor practising Christians; he felt that (in contrast to the politicised religion of Ulster) this left the ground fallow for the Christian message to be heard afresh. He opposed talk of a Christian political party and denounced any form of compulsion in religion (friends such as Tolkien thought he took this too far in suggesting that in matters such as divorce the state should have a law for Christians and another for non-Christians). He expressed robust distrust for liberal theologians, neo-Calvinists, and anglo-catholic ritualists as self-validating cliques, dismissive or contemptuous towards the ordinary folk for whom Christ died – he suggested that no preacher should be licensed without being able to ‘translate’ theological discourse into colloquial English. Lewis remarked that when speaking about specific sins he preferred to focus on one with which he himself had had difficulty in the previous week. He believed that faith could not be induced by argument alone, but that the apologist could clear away obstacles to belief by showing that Christianity was intellectually plausible. His theological position is recognisably that of a conservative exponent of the anglican via media. Despite his lifelong rejection of the form of puritanism found in Ulster, his sacramentalism, belief in theistic evolution, and rejection of belief in the literal inerrancy of the Old Testament accounts of the pre-Davidic era, Lewis won an abiding popularity among evangelicals, perhaps accounted for by his ‘plain speech’. His wartime references also appealed to evangelical apocalypticism.

Some catholic friends were disappointed by Lewis's preference for anglicanism (leavened with auricular confession, and belief in purgatory and in the Real Presence). Tolkien thought the title The pilgrim's regress sadly appropriate, and attributed Lewis's views to residual Ulster prejudices that were also detectable in his conversation. (These did not stop him establishing a warm friendship with Mother Mary Martin, whose Drogheda hospital became Warnie's refuge during frequent bouts of alcoholism.) Lewis also drew on medieval criticisms of the corruptions to which clerical and conventual life are prone, and whose force he felt through his own latent sadism; he feared that catholicism elevated peripheral doctrines to matters of obligation and, by formalising and bureaucratising ascetic practices that should be matters of discretion, encouraged spiritual pride and cruelty towards those who assumed obligations they could not fulfil.

Chronicles of Narnia Critical views of the "Narnia" stories have not always been favourable: Tolkien regarded them as flimsy pastiche in comparison to his own work, and later critics attacked their occasionally patronising tone and conservative view of gender roles, disliked their Christian allegory (which attracts others), and found unacceptable racial and religious undertones in the portrayal of the devil-worshipping pseudo-Islamic Calormenes. But for generations of readers their childlike gusto and eidetic imagery (Lewis composed his romances by forming visual images in his head, waiting for them to form series, and filling the gaps by conscious effort) have made them classics.

Poetry

Before Lewis's conversion to Christianity, he published 2 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.

For Lewis, the 1930s were a time of literary maturation; his ambition to become a major Romantic poet had collapsed, though he continued writing verse. His poetic tastes were late Victorian or Georgian; he was hostile to literary modernism.

Recognition

In 1946 Lewis received an honorary D.D. from the University of St. Andrews.

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

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.

In 1998 a series of events took place in Belfast to mark the anniversary and a statue was erected on the Newtownards Road depicting Lewis entering a wardrobe. Numerous appreciation societies have been formed and specialist newsletters published.

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 organizations, often with a concern for maintaining conservative Christian values in education or literary studies.

Lewis continues to attract a wide readership. In 2008, The Times ranked him 11th on their list of "the 50 greatest British writers since 1945".

On 23 November 2013, 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 Lancelyn Green and George Sayer.

In popular culture

The story of Lewis's marriage to Joy Davidman is commemorated in William Nicholson's play Shadowlands, televised with Joss Ackland as Lewis and Clare Bloom as Joy, and released as a film in 1993, directed by Richard Attenborough, with Anthony Hopkins as Lewis and Debra Winger as Joy.

In 2005, a 1-hour made for TV movie entitled C.S. Lewis: Beyond Narnia (starring Anton Rodgers) provided a general synopsis of Lewis's life.

As of December 2003 there were approximately 407,000 websites containing references to Lewis.

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

The 2005 film adaptation of The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe|The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe was based on the original instalment of the Narnia series. Film adaptations have been made of 2 other Narnia 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 was slated for release in 2011.

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

Publications

Main article: Bibliography of C.S. Lewis

Poetry

• Spirits in Bondage (as "Clive Hamilton). 1919.
• Dymer (as "Clive Hamilton). London: J.M. Dent / New York: E.P. Dutton, 1926.
• Narrative Poems ((edited by Walter Hooper). London: Bles 1969.
• Poems (edited by Walter Hooper). London: G. Bles, 1964, 1977.

Novels

• Out of the Silent Planet. London: Bodley Head, 1938.
• Perelandra. London: Jonathan Lane, 1943.
• That Hideous Strength: A modern fairy tale for grown-ups. London: Jonathan Lane, 1945.
• The Cosmic Trilogy [Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, That Hideous Strength] London: Pan / Bodley Head, 1989.

Short fiction

• The Dark Tower, and other stories (edited by Walter Hooper). London: Collins 1977.

Non-fiction

• The Pilgrim’s Regress: An allegorical apology for Christianity, reason and romanticism. 1933; New York: Sheed & Ward, 1944.
• The Allegory of Love: A study of medieval tradition. Oxford: Clarendon Press 1936.
• The Personal Heresy: A controversy (with E.M.W. Tilyard). London: Oxford University Press, 1939.
• The Problem of Pain [Christian Challenge Ser.] London: Geoffrey Bles (Centenary Press), 1940.
• A Preface to Paradise Lost. London: Oxford Univesity Press, 1942.
• The Screwtape Letters. London: Geoffrey Bles 1942; London: Fount Press [Collins], 1977, 1982, 1983, 1990. 1998.
• The Abolition of Man; or, Reflections on education with special reference to the teaching of English in the upper forms of schools. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1943, 1944; London: Fount Press [Collins] 1963, 1986, 1999.
• Beyond Personality: The Christian idea of God. London: G. Bles [Centenary Press] 1944.
• Miracles: A Preliminary Study. London: Geoffrey Bles [Centenary Press] 1947.
• Mere Christianity. London: Fontana Books 1952
  • revised & enlarged, 1955.
• Surprised by Joy: The shape of my early life. 1955.
• Shall We Lose God in Outer Space? London: Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge, 1959.
• The Four Loves. London: Geoffrey Bles 1960.
• An Experiment in Criticism. Cambridge University Press]], 1961, 1965, 1992.
• Screwtape Letters / Screwtape Proposes a Toast. London: Geoffrey Bles, 1961.
• A Grief Observed. London: Faber & Faber 1961; revised, 1966.
• The Great Divorce: A dream. London: G. Bles 1946, 1972, 1997.
• Beyond the Bright Blur. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1963.
• The Discarded Image: An introduction to medieval and renaissance literature. London: Cambridge University Press, 1964, 1967.
• Spenser’s Images of Life (edited by Alastair Fowler). Cambridge University Press, 1967.
• The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment. Appleford: Marcham Books, 1972.

Juvenile

• The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. London: Geoffrey Bles 1950; Puffin, 1959.
• Prince Caspian: The return to Narnia. London: Geoffrey Bles 1951.
• The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. London: Geoffrey Bles 1952; London: Puffin, 1965.
• The Silver Chair. London: Geoffrey Bles 1953.
• The Magician’s Nephew. London: Bodley Head 1955; Puffin 1963.
• The Last Battle: A story for children. London: Geoffrey Bles 1956; Puffin 1964.
• The Chronicles of Narnia (illustrated by Paline Baynes) [The Magician’s Nephew; The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe; The Horse and His Boy; Prince Caspian; The Voyage of the Dawn Treader; The Silver Chair; The Last Battle]. (7 volumes), New York; NY: HarperCollins, 1994.

Collected editions

• An Anthology; C.S. Lewis (edited by George MacDonald). London: G. Bles, 1946.
• Christian Reflections (edited by Walter Hooper). Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans. 1967.
• Of Other Worlds: Essays and stories (edited by Walter Hooper). London: Geoffrey Bles 1966; New York: Harcourt Brace, 1975.
  • also published as Of This and Other Worlds. London: Fount Press [Collins], 1982, 1984, 2000.
• Undeceptions (edited by Walter Hooper). London: Geoffrey Bles 1971
  • also published as God in the Dock: Essays on theology and ethics. London: Fount Press [Collins] 1979.
• The Essential C.S. Lewis (edited by Lyle W. Dorsett) New York: Collier, 1988.
• Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Literature (edited by Walter Hooper). Cambridge University Press [Canto Edition], 1998.
• Compelling Reason: Essays on ethics and belief (edited by Walter Hooper). London: Fount Press [Collins] 1996.
• Essay Collection, and other short pieces. London: HarperCollins 2000.

Letters and journals

• Letters (edited by Walter Hamilton Lewis). London: Bles, 1966.
  • (revised & enlarged by Walter Hooper). London: Harcourt Brace 1993.
• Mark vs. Tristram: Correspondence between C. S. Lewis and Owen Barfield (edited by Walter Hooper). Cambridge, MA: Lowell House, 1967.
• Letters to an American Lady (edited by Clyde S. Kilby). Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans, 1967.
• "They Stand Together": Letters of C.S. Lewis to Arthur Greeves, 1914-1963 (edited by Walter Hooper). New York: Collier 1986.
• ‘All My Road Before Me’: Diary of C.S. Lewis, 1922-27, (edited by Walter Hooper; foreword by Owen Barfield). London: HarperCollins 1991, 1993.
• Collected Letters, Vol 1: Family letters, 1905-1931 (edited by Walter Hooper). London: HarperCollins 2000.

Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy Ricorso.

See also

• List of British poets
• List of Irish poets

References

• John Beversluis, C.S. Lewis and the Search for Rational Religion. Eerdmans, 1985. ISBN 0-8028-0046-7
• Ronald W. Bresland, The Backward Glance: C.S. Lewis and Ireland. Institute of Irish Studies at Queen's University of Belfast, 1999.
• 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
• David Clare, "C.S. Lewis: An Irish Writer". Irish Studies Review, Volume 18, Issue 1, February 2010, pages 17 – 38.
• 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
• Sean Connolly, Inklings of Heaven: C.S. Lewis and Eschatology. Gracewing, 2007. ISBN 978-0-85244-659-1
• Michael Coren, The Man Who Created Narnia: The story of C.S. Lewis. Eerdmans, reprint edition 1996. ISBN 0-8028-3822-7
• Christopher Derrick, C.S. Lewis and the Church of Rome: A Study in Proto-Ecumenism. Ignatius Press, 1981. ISBN 978-9991718507
• David C. Downing, Into the Region of Awe: Mysticism in C.S. Lewis. InterVarsity, 2005. ISBN 0-8308-3284-X
• David C. Downing, Into the Wardrobe: C.S. Lewis and the Narnia Chronicles. Jossey-Bass, 2005. ISBN 0-7879-7890-6
• David C. Downing, The Most Reluctant Convert: C.S. Lewis's Journey to Faith. InterVarsity, 2002. ISBN 0-8308-3271-8
• David C. Downing, Planets in Peril: A Critical Study of C.S. Lewis's Ransom Trilogy. University of Massachusetts Press, 1992. ISBN 0-87023-997-X
• Colin Duriez & 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 (ed.), C.S. Lewis: Life, Works, and Legacy. 4 Vol. Praeger Perspectives, 2007. ISBN 0275991164
• Bruce L. Edwards (ed.), 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 Christian Values in Literature, 1986. ISBN 0939555018
• Alastair Fowler, "C.S. Lewis: Supervisor", Yale Review, Vol. 91, No. 4 (October 2003).
• Helen Gardner, "† Clive Staples Lewis, 1898–1963". Biographical memoir, in Proceedings of the British Academy 51 (1966), 417-428.
• 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 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 9780873388900
• 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 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
• Dabney Adams Hart, Through the Open Door: A New Look at C.S. Lewis. University of Alabama Press, 1984. ISBN 0-8173-0187-9
• 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 Henderson (ed.), C.S. Lewis and Friends: Faith and the Power of Imagination. London: SPCK, 2011. Discusses Lewis, Austin Farrer, Rose Macaulay, Charles Williams, J.R.R. Tolkien, and Dorothy L. Sayers. Contributors include Peter Schakel, Ann Loades, Ralph Wood, Charles Hefling, and the editors. Foreword by David Brown.
• David Hein & Edward Hugh Henderson (ed.), 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, 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 0-310-26781-1
• Jon Kennedy, The Everything Guide to C.S. Lewis and Narnia. Adams Media, 2008. ISBN 0-1-59869-427-8
• Clyde S. Kilby, The Christian World of C.S. Lewis. Eerdmans, 1964, 1995. ISBN 0-8028-0871-9
• Don W. King, C.S. Lewis, Poet: The Legacy of His Poetic Impulse. Kent State University Press, 2001. ISBN 0-87338-681-7
• W.H. Lewis (ed.), Letters of C.S. Lewis. Geoffrey Bles, 1966. ISBN 0-00-242457-6. (Followed in 1988 by an expanded version edited by Walter Hooper, Fount Paperbacks, ISBN 0006273297.)
• 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
• David Mills (ed), The Pilgrim's Guide: C.S. Lewis and the Art of Witness. Eerdmans, 1998 ISBN 0-8208-3777-8
• Thomas L. Martin (ed.), Reading the Classics with C.S. Lewis. Baker Academic, 2000. ISBN 1-84227-0737
• Patrick Maume, "Lewis, Clive Staples ('Jack')," Dictionary of Irish Biography, October 2009. Web, Aug. 30, 2022.
• 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. HarperCollins, 1999; then 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
• Harry Lee Poe & Rebecca Whitten Poe (ed.), C.S. Lewis Remembered: Collected Reflections of Students, Friends & Colleagues. Zondervan, 2006. ISBN 978-0-310-26509-2
• 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 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 0-88270-544-X
• Jeffrey D. Schultz and John G. West, Jr. (eds.), The C. S. Lewis Readers' Encyclopedia. Zondervan Publishing House, 1998. ISBN 0310215382
• Sanford Schwartz, C.S. Lewis on the Final Frontier: Science and the Supernatural in the Space Trilogy. Oxford University Press, 2009. ISBN 9780195374728.
• 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.
• Michael Ward, Planet Narnia. Oxford University Press, 2008. ISBN 978-0-19-531387-1.
• 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

Fonds

There are collections of Lewis's papers at the Bodleian Library, Oxford, and Wheaton College, Illinois.

• Center for the Study of C.S. Lewis & Friends at Taylor University, Upland, Indiana, Lewis archive

External links

Poems

• C.S. Lewis at Poetry Nook (9 poems)
• Clive Staples Lewis at PoemHunter (51 poems)
• C.S. Lewis at AllPoetry (54 poems)

Prose

• De Descriptione Temporum – Lewis' inaugural Lecture as Chair of Mediaeval and Renaissance Literature at Cambridge University

Audio / video

• Lewis on The George MacDonald Informational Web Has an excerpt of Lewis talking about friend and fellow author: Charles Williams, bottom of page
• Lewis's Surviving Broadcast Talks on the BBC BBC page on Lewis with original audio recordings
• Complete text and audio of C.S. Lewis's BBC Radio Broadcast 'Beyond Personality – Mere Men'

Books

• Works by C. S. Lewis at Project Gutenberg
• A Beginner's Bibliography of the Inklings, Mythopoeic Society.
• C.S. Lewis Reading Room, with extensive links to online primary and secondary literature (Tyndale Seminary)
• C.S. Lewis at Amazon.com
• Works by or about C.S. Lewis in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• C.S. Lewis at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database

About

• C.S. Lewis in the Encyclopædia Britannica
• C.S. Lewis at NNDB
• C.S. Lewis biography, BBC
• C.S. Lewis Official website
• C.S. Lewis Foundation
• Journal of Inklings Studies – British academic journal on C.S. Lewis and his circle
• C.S. Lewis Society of California
• C.S. Lewis Review

This article incorporates text from the Dictionary of Irish Biography, licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 4.0 International license. Original article is at: Lewis, Clive Staples ('Jack')