Lewis Bio & Bibliography
OHIO
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Born in Belfast, Northern      Ireland on November 29, 1898, Clive Staples ("Jack") Lewis was reared in a      peculiarly bookish home, one in which the reality he found on the pages of      the books within his parents' extensive library seemed as tangible and meaningful      to him as anything that transpired outside their doors. As adolescents, Lewis      and his older brother, Warren, were more at home in the world of ideas and      books of the past, than with the material, technological world of the 20th      Century. When the tranquillity and sanctity of the Lewis home was shattered      beyond repair by the death of his mother when he was ten, Lewis sought refuge      in composing stories and excelling in scholastics. Soon thereafter he became      precociously oriented toward the metaphysical and ultimate questions.
The rest of his saga and      the particulars of his writing career might be seen as the melancholy search      for the security he had took granted during the peace and grace of his childhood.      By Lewis's testimony, this recovery was to be had only in the "joy" he discovered      in an adult conversion to Christianity. Long-time friend and literary executor      of the Lewis estate, Owen Barfield has suggested that there were, in fact,      three "C. S. Lewises." That is to say, during his lifetime Lewis fulfilled      three very different vocations-- and fulfilled them successfully. There was,      first, Lewis the distinguished Oxbridge literary scholar and critic; second,      Lewis, the highly acclaimed author of science fiction and children's literature;      and thirdly, Lewis, the popular writer and broadcaster of Christian apologetics.      The amazing thing, Barfield notes, is that those who may have known of Lewis      in any single role may not have known that he performed in the other two.      In a varied and comprehensive writing career, Lewis carved out a sterling      reputation as a scholar, a novelist, and a theologian for three very different      audiences.
No brief summary can thus      do justice to the many and varied works Lewis produced in his lifetime between      1919-1961. Indeed, more Lewis volumes--collection of essays, chiefly--have      appeared after his death than during his lifetime. A sampling of the range      and depth of his achievements in criticism, fiction, and apologetics might      begin, however, with the first books Lewis published, two volumes of poetry: Spirits in Bondage, published in 1919 when Lewis was but 23, and his      long narrative poem, Dymer, published in 1926. Neither were critical      successes, convincing the classically trained Lewis that he would never become      an accomplished poet given the rise of modernism; subsequently he turned his      attention to literary history, specifically the field of medieval and renaissance      literature. Along the way, however, Lewis embraced Christianity, and in 1933,      published his first theological work, The Pilgrim's Regress, a parody      of John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress, that details Lewis's flight      from skepticism to faith in a lively allegory.
In 1936, Lewis published      the breakthrough work that earned him his reputation as a scholar, The      Allegory of Love, a work of high-calibre, original scholarship that revolutionized      literary understanding of the function of allegory in medieval literature,      particularly Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene. Between 1939 and 1954,      Lewis continued to publish well-received works in criticism and theory, debating      E. M. W. Tillyard on the objectivity of poetry in The Personal Heresy,      published in 1939, and in that same year publishing a collection of essays      under the title Rehabilitations--a work whose title characterized much      of Lewis's work, as he attempted to bring the fading critical reputation of      authors he revered back into balance. In 1942, his A Preface to Paradise      Lost attempted to rehabilitate the reputation of John Milton, while in      1954, he offered a comprehensive overview of 16th-century British poetry and      narrative in his English Literature in the Sixteenth Century.
Lewis is best known, however,      for his fiction and his Christian apologetics, two disciplines complementary      to each other within his oeuvre. In 1936, Lewis completed the first book in      a science-fiction space trilogy, Out of the Silent Planet, that introduced      the hero, Edwin Ransom, a philologist modeled roughly on Lewis's friend, J.      R. R. Tolkien. Perelandra, a new version of Paradise Lost set      in Venus, followed in 1943, and That Hideous Strength completed the      trilogy in 1945; the latter Lewis billed as "a fairy tale for adults," treating      novelistically of the themes Lewis had developed in his critique of modern      education in The Abolition of Man, published two years earlier. Lewis's      most notable critical and commercial success, however, is certainly his seven-volume Chronicles of Narnia, which he published in single volumes from 1950-56.      These popular children's fantasies began with the 1950 volume, The Lion,      the Witch, and the Wardrobe, a tale centered around Aslan the lion, a      Christ-figure who creates and rules the supernatural land of Narnia, and the      improbable adventures of four undaunted British schoolchildren who stumble      into Narnia through a clothes closet. Lewis's own favorite fictional work, Till We Have Faces, his last imaginative work, published in 1956, is      a retelling of the Cupid/Psyche myth, but has never achieved the critical      recognition he hoped it would.
Lewis's reputation as      a winsome, articulate proponent of Christianity began with the publication      of two important theological works: The Problem of Pain, a defense      of pain--and the doctrine of hell-- as evidence of an ordered universe, published      in 1940; and The Screwtape Letters, a "interception" of a senior devil's      correspondence with a junior devil fighting with "the Enemy," Christ, over      the soul of an unsuspecting believer, published in 1942. Lewis emerged during      the war years as a religious broadcaster who became famous as "the apostle      to skeptics," in Britain and abroad, especially in the United States. His      wartime radio essays defending and explaining the Christian faith comforted      the fearful and wounded, and were eventually collected and published in America      as Mere Christianity in 1952. In the midst of this prolific output,      Lewis took time to write his spiritual autobiography, Surprised by Joy,      published in 1955. In the two decades before his death, Lewis published more      than eight books that directly or indirectly served him in the task of apologetics      and he is arguably the most important Christian writer of the 20th Century.
A prolific and popular      author, Lewis's criticism, fiction, and religious essays stay in print, and      are continually reprinted in various bindings and new collections. Lewis's      life and work have been also the focus of countless books since his death      in 1963. Ironically, though, Lewis may eventually suffer the same fate as      other authors he himself "rehabilitated" during his scholarly career. Surfeited      by volume after volume of analysis, paraphrase, and critique, Lewis's own      canon may be dwarfed by secondary sources, an attitude he opposed all of his      life in reading others. As it stands, both his fiction and theological writings      have been endlessly and hyper-critically explored, creating a trail of footnotes      and asides long enough to camouflage the essential viewpoints and facts about      his life--thus discouraging even the most diligent student of Lewis. It must      be said that Lewis's own works remain the most reliable source and insightful      interpreter of this original thinker and personality.
I. Primary Works Written    by C. S. Lewis
NOVELS: Out of    the Silent Planet, 1938; Perelandra, 1942; That Hideous Strength,    1945; 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.
THEOLOGY: The    Pilgrim's Regress, 1933; The Problem of Pain, 1940; The Screwtape    Letters, 1942; The Abolition of Man, 1943; The Great Divorce,    1945; Miracles, 1947; The Weight of Glory, 1949; Mere Christianity,    1952; Reflections on the Psalms, 1958; The Four Loves, 1960; The    World's Last Night, 1960; Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer,    1963; Of Other Worlds, 1966; Christian Reflections, 1967; God    in the Dock, 1971.
LITERARY CRITICISM: The    Allegory of Love, 1936; Rehabilitations, 1939; The Personal Heresy,    1939; A Preface to Paradise Lost, 1942; Arthurian Torso, 1948; English Literature in the Sixteenth Century, 1954; Studies in Words,    1960; An Experiment in Criticism, 1961; The Discarded Image, 1964; Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Literature, 1966; Spenser's Images    of Life, 1967; Selected Literary Essays, 1969; Present Concerns,    1986.
AUTOBIOGRAPHY: Surprised    by Joy, 1955; A Grief Observed, 1961.
CORRESPONDENCE: Letters    of C. S. Lewis, 1966; Letters to an American Lady, 1967; The Letters    of C. S. Lewis to Arthur Greeves, 1979.
POETRY: Spirits    in Bondage, 1919; Dymer, 1926; Poems, 1964; Narrative Poems,    1969.
II. Secondary Resources
In the absence of a full-fledged    bio-critical study of Lewis, Kathryn Lindskoog, C. S. Lewis: Mere Christian,    1988, and Margaret Hannay, C. S. Lewis, 1981, are perhaps the two best    single volumes on the life and career of Lewis, both offering broad overviews    and provocative evaluations of each of his works. Roger L. Green and Walter    Hooper, C. S. Lewis: A Biography, 1974, though dated, and somewhat misleading,    remains the best biographical source, though William Griffin, C. S. Lewis;    A Dramatic Life, 1986, offers a unique diary-like, strictly chronological    look at Lewis's life, and James Como, ed., C. S. Lewis at the Breakfast Table,    1979, provides capsule impressions by Oxbridge colleagues and friends who knew    Lewis best. Paul Holmer, C. S. Lewis: The Shape of His Faith and Thought,    1976 and Corbin Scott Carnell, Bright Shadow of Reality: C. S. Lewis and    the Feeling Intellect, 1974, offer insights into the intellectual influences    on Lewis and how they manifested themselves in both his theology and fiction.
Bruce L. Edwards A Rhetoric    of Reading: C. S. Lewis's Defense of Western Literacy, 1986, offers an in-depth    assessment of Lewis' literary criticism and interpretive method, while his edited    collection, The Taste of the Pineapple: Essays on C. S. Lewis as Reader,    Critic, and Imaginative Writer, 1988, boasts 14 essays by prominent Lewis    scholars whose incisive analysis of Lewis's fictional and critical principles    explains how each informed the other. Thomas Howard, The Achievement of C.    S. Lewis, 1980, concentrates exclusively on Lewis's Narnian tales and the    Space Trilogy, providing evocative readings of both. Peter Schakel, Reason    and Imagination in C. S. Lewis: A Study of Till We Have Faces, 1984, presents    a convincing, masterful interpretation of Lewis's most difficult work. Kathryn    Lindksoog's The C. S. Lewis Hoax, 1988, is a provoking and disturbing    inquiry into the authenticity and integrity of some posthumously published stories    commonly attributed to Lewis. Other studies include Robert H. Smith, Patches    of Godlight: The Pattern of Thought of C. S. Lewis, 1981; Jocelyn Gibb, Light on C. S. Lewis, 1965; and Peter Schakel, Reading with the Heart:    the Way into Narnia, 1979.