C.s. lewis biography books

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C.s. lewis biography books: Yes, he wrote several autobiographical books

Ralph Fiennes. Daniel Day-Lewis. Maggie Smith. Alan Cumming. Olivia Colman. Teaching Career at Oxford and Wartime Broadcasts Lewis graduated from Oxford University with a focus on literature and classic philosophy, and in he was awarded a fellowship teaching position at Magdalen College, which was part of the university. Books and Film Legacy Lewis was a prolific author of fiction and nonfiction who wrote dozens of books over the course of his career.

Lewis died in at his home in Oxford. During his lifetime C. Lewis suggested to his friend, Roger Lancelyn Green, who was a fellow English scholar, that he would undertake his biography one day. Warren Lewis, brother to Jack, contributed a great deal to the writing. Now after conversations with Mrs. Moore's daughter, Maureen, and a consideration of the way in which their bedrooms were arranged at The Kilns, I am quite certain that they were.

However, the romantic nature of the relationship is doubted by other writers; for example, Philip Zaleski and Carol Zaleski write in The Fellowship that. When—or whether—Lewis commenced an affair with Mrs. Moore remains unclear. Lewis spoke well of Mrs. Moore throughout his life, saying to his friend George Sayer, "She was generous and taught me to be generous, too.

Moore, and her daughter Maureen. The Kilns was a house in the district of Headington Quarry on the outskirts of Oxford, now part of the suburb of Risinghurst. They all contributed financially to the purchase of the house, which eventually passed to Maureen, who by then was Dame Maureen Dunbarwhen Warren died in Moore had dementia in her later years and was eventually moved into a nursing homewhere she died in Lewis visited her every day in this c.s.

lewis biography books until her death. Lewis was raised in a religious family that attended the Church of Ireland. He became an atheist at age 15, though he later described his young self as being paradoxically "very angry with God for not existing" and "equally angry with him for creating a world". Nequaquam nobis divinitus esse paratam Naturam rerum; tanta stat praedita culpa.

This is a highly poetic, rather than a literal translation. Lewis's interest in the works of the Scottish writer George MacDonald was part of what turned him from atheism. This can be seen particularly well through this passage in Lewis's The Great Divorcechapter nine, when the semi-autobiographical main character meets MacDonald in Heaven :.

I tried, trembling, to tell this man all that his writings had done for me. I tried to tell how a certain frosty afternoon at Leatherhead Station when I had first bought a copy of Phantastes being then about sixteen years old had been to me what the first sight of Beatrice had been to Dante : Here begins the new life. I started to confess how c.s.

lewis biography books that Life had delayed in the region of imagination merely: how slowly and reluctantly I had come to admit that his Christendom had more than an accidental connexion with it, how hard I had tried not to see the true name of the quality which first met me in his books is Holiness. He eventually returned to Christianity, having been influenced by arguments with his Oxford colleague and friend J.

Tolkienwhom he seems to have met for the first time on 11 Mayas well as the book The Everlasting Man by G. Lewis vigorously resisted conversion, noting that he was brought into Christianity like a prodigal"kicking, struggling, resentful, and darting his eyes in every direction for a chance to escape". You must c.s. lewis biography books me alone in that room in Magdalen [College, Oxford], 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 [ a ] I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England. After his conversion to theism inLewis converted to Christianity infollowing a long discussion during a late-night walk along Addison's Walk with close friends Tolkien and Hugo Dyson.

He records making a specific commitment to Christian belief while on his way to the zoo with his brother. He became a member of the Church of England — somewhat to the disappointment of Tolkien, who had hoped that he would join the Catholic Church. Lewis was a committed Anglican who upheld a largely orthodox Anglican theologythough in his apologetic writings, he made an effort to avoid espousing any one denomination.

In his later writings, some believe that he proposed ideas such as purification of venial sins after death in purgatory The Great Divorce and Letters to Malcolm and mortal sin The Screwtape Letterswhich are generally considered to be Roman Catholic teachings, although they are also widely held in Anglicanism particularly in high church Anglo-Catholic circles.

Regardless, Lewis considered himself an entirely orthodox Anglican to the end of his life, reflecting that he had initially attended church only to receive communion and had been repelled by the hymns and the poor quality of the sermons. He later came to consider himself honoured by worshipping with men of faith who came in shabby clothes and work boots and who sang all the verses to all the hymns.

He rejected the recruiting office's suggestion of writing columns for the Ministry of Information in the press, as he did not want to "write lies" [ 51 ] to deceive the enemy. He later served in the local Home Guard in Oxford. From toLewis spoke on religious programmes broadcast by the BBC from London while the city was under periodic air raids.

The youthful Alistair Cooke was less impressed, and in described "the alarming vogue of Mr. Lewis" as an example of how wartime tends to "spawn so many quack religions and Messiahs". FromLewis was occupied at his summer holiday weekends visiting R. It was also during the same wartime period that Lewis was invited to become first President of the Oxford Socratic Club in January[ 56 ] a position that he enthusiastically held until he resigned on appointment to Cambridge University in InLewis accepted the newly founded chair in Mediaeval and Renaissance Literature at Magdalene College, Cambridgewhere he finished his career.

He maintained a strong attachment to the city of Oxfordkeeping a home there and returning on weekends until his death in She was my daughter and my mother, my pupil and my teacher, my subject and my sovereign; and always, holding all these in solution, my trusty comrade, friend, shipmate, fellow-soldier. My mistress; but at the same time all that any man friend and I have good ones has ever been to me.

Perhaps more. In later life, Lewis corresponded with Joy Davidman Greshaman American writer of Jewish backgrounda former Communistand a convert from atheism to Christianity. She was separated from her alcoholic and abusive husband, novelist William L. Greshamand came to England with her two sons, David and Douglas. Joy was the only woman whom he had met Since she was divorced, this was not straightforward in the Church of England at the time, but a friend, the Rev.

Peter Bide, performed the ceremony at her bed in the Churchill Hospital on 21 March Gresham's cancer soon went into remissionand the couple lived together as a family with Warren Lewis untilwhen her cancer recurred. She died on 13 July Earlier that year, the couple took a brief holiday in Greece and the Aegean ; Lewis was fond of walking but not of travel, and this marked his only crossing of the English Channel after Lewis's book A Grief Observed describes his experience of bereavement in such a raw and personal fashion that he originally released it under the pseudonym N.

Clerk to keep readers from associating the book with him. Ironically, many friends recommended the book to Lewis as a method for dealing with his own grief. After Lewis's death, his authorship was made public by Faberwith the permission of the executors. Lewis had adopted Gresham's two sons and continued to raise them after her death. Douglas Gresham is a Christian like Lewis and his mother, [ 67 ] while David Gresham turned to his mother's ancestral faith, becoming Orthodox Jewish in his beliefs.

His mother's writings had featured the Jews in an unsympathetic manner, particularly on shechita ritual slaughter. David informed Lewis that he was going to become a shoheta ritual slaughterer, to present this type of Jewish religious functionary to the world in a more favourable light. In a interview, Douglas Gresham acknowledged that he and his brother were not close, although they had corresponded via email.

David died on 25 December In early JuneLewis began experiencing nephritiswhich resulted in blood poisoning. His illness caused him to miss the autumn term at Cambridge, though his health gradually began improving in and he returned that April. His health continued to improve and, according to his friend George SayerLewis was fully himself by early On 15 July that year, Lewis fell ill and was admitted to the hospital; he had a heart attack at pm the next day and lapsed into a coma, but unexpectedly woke the following day at pm.

After he was discharged from the hospital, Lewis returned to the Kilns, though he was too ill to return to work. As a result, he resigned from his post at Cambridge in August Lewis's condition continued to decline, and he was diagnosed with end-stage kidney failure in mid-November. He collapsed in his bedroom at pm on 22 November, at age 64, and died a few minutes later.

Media coverage of Lewis's death was almost completely overshadowed by news of the assassination of John F. Kennedywhich occurred on the same day approximately 55 minutes following Lewis's collapseas did the death of English writer Aldous Huxleyauthor of Brave New World. Kennedy, C. Lewis began his academic career as an undergraduate student at Oxford Universitywhere he won a triple first, the highest honours in three areas of study.

His The Allegory of Love helped reinvigorate the serious study of late medieval narratives such as the Roman de la Rose. His last academic workThe Discarded Image : An Introduction to Medieval and Renaissance Literatureis a summary of the medieval world view, a reference to the "discarded image" of the cosmos. Lewis was a prolific writer, and his circle of literary friends became an informal discussion society known as the " Inklings ", including J.

Glyer points to December as the Inklings' beginning date. The religious and conservative Betjeman detested Lewis, whereas the anti-establishment Tynan retained a lifelong admiration for him. Of Tolkien, Lewis writes in Surprised by Joy :. 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 HVV Dyson 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 Papistand at my first coming into the English Faculty explicitly never to trust a philologist. Tolkien was both. In addition to his scholarly work, Lewis wrote several popular novels, including the science fiction Space Trilogy for adults and the Narnia fantasies for children.

C.s. lewis biography books: If you want the most critical

Most deal implicitly with Christian themes such as sin, humanity's fall from graceand redemption. His first novel after becoming a Christian was The Pilgrim's Regresswhich depicted his journey to Christianity in the allegorical style of John Bunyan 's The Pilgrim's Progress. The book was poorly received by critics at the time, [ 23 ] although David Martyn Lloyd-Jonesone of Lewis's contemporaries at Oxford, gave him much-valued encouragement.

Asked by Lloyd-Jones when he would write another book, Lewis replied, "When I understand the meaning of prayer. The Space Trilogy also called the Cosmic Trilogy or Ransom Trilogy dealt with what Lewis saw as the dehumanizing trends in contemporary science fiction. The first book, Out of the Silent Planetwas apparently written following a conversation with his friend J.

Tolkien about these trends. Lewis agreed to write a "space travel" story and Tolkien a "time travel" one, but Tolkien never completed " The Lost Road ", linking his Middle-earth to the modern world. Lewis's main character Elwin Ransom is based in part on Tolkien, a fact to which Tolkien alludes in his letters. The second novel, Perelandradepicts a new Garden of Eden on the planet Venus, a new Adam and Eveand a new "serpent figure" to tempt Eve.

The story can be seen as an account of what might have happened if the terrestrial Adam had defeated the serpent and avoided the Fall of Manwith Ransom intervening in the novel to "ransom" the new Adam and Eve from the deceptions of the enemy. The third novel, That Hideous Strengthdevelops the theme of nihilistic science threatening traditional human values, embodied in Arthurian legend.

Many ideas in the trilogy, particularly opposition to dehumanization as portrayed in the third book, are presented more formally in The Abolition of Manbased on a series of lectures by Lewis at Durham University in Lewis stayed in Durham, where he says he was overwhelmed by the magnificence of the cathedral. That Hideous Strength is in fact set in the environs of "Edgestow" university, a small English university like Durham, though Lewis disclaims any other resemblance between the two.

Walter HooperLewis's literary executor, discovered a fragment of another science-fiction novel apparently written by Lewis called The Dark Tower. Ransom appears in the story but it is not clear whether the book was intended as part of the same series of novels. The manuscript was eventually published inthough Lewis scholar Kathryn Lindskoog doubts its authenticity.

The Chronicles of Narniaconsidered a classic of children's literature, is a series of seven fantasy novels. Written between and and illustrated by Pauline Baynesthe series is Lewis's most popular work, having sold over million copies in 41 languages Kelly Guthmann It has been adapted several times, complete or in part, for radio, television, stage and cinema.

The books contain Christian ideas intended to be easily accessible to young readers. In addition to Christian themes, Lewis also borrows characters from Greek and Roman mythologyas well as traditional British and Irish fairy tales. Lewis wrote several works on Heaven and Hell. One of these, The Great Divorceis a short novella in which a few residents of Hell take a bus ride to Heaven, where they are met by people who dwell there.

The proposition is that they can stay if they choose, in which case they can call the place where they had come from " Purgatory ", instead of "Hell", but many find it not to their taste. This work deliberately echoes two other more famous works with a similar theme: the Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieriand Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress.

Another short work, The Screwtape Letterswhich he dedicated to J. Tolkien, consists of letters of advice from senior demon Screwtape to his nephew Wormwood on the best ways to tempt a particular human and secure his damnation. 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 paganand the connections with specific Christian beliefs are left implicit.

Before Lewis's c.s. lewis biography books to Christianity, he published two books: Spirits in Bondagea collection of poems, and Dymera single narrative poem. Both were published under the pen name Clive Hamilton. He also wrote The Four Loveswhich rhetorically explains four categories of love: friendshiperosaffectionand charity. Ina partial draft was discovered of Language and Human Naturewhich Lewis had begun co-writing c.s.

lewis biography books J. Tolkien, but which was never completed. In an original poem was discovered in a collection of documents in Special Collections at the University of Leeds. Lewis is also regarded by many as one of the most influential Christian apologists of his time, in addition to his career as an English professor and an author of fiction.

Mere Christianity was voted best book of the 20th century by Christianity Today in Lewis was very interested in presenting an argument from reason against metaphysical naturalism and for the existence of God. Mere ChristianityThe Problem of Painand Miracles were all concerned, to one degree or another, with refuting popular objections to Christianity, such as the question, "How could a good God allow pain to exist in the world?

According to George Sayer, losing a debate with Elizabeth Anscombealso a Christian, led Lewis to re-evaluate his role as an apologist, and his future works concentrated on devotional literature and children's books. Certainly, Anscombe herself believed that Lewis's argument, though flawed, was getting at something very important; she thought that this came out more in the improved version of it that Lewis presented in a subsequent edition of Miracles — though that version also had 'much to criticize in it'.

Lewis wrote an autobiography titled Surprised by Joywhich places special emphasis on his own conversion. His most famous works, the Chronicles of Narniacontain many strong Christian messages and are often considered allegory. Lewis, an expert on the subject of allegory, maintained that the books were not allegory, and preferred to call the Christian aspects of them " suppositional ".

As Lewis wrote in a letter to a Mrs. Hook in December If Aslan represented the immaterial Deity in the same way in which Giant Despair [a character in The Pilgrim's Progress ] represents despair, he would be an allegorical figure. In reality, he is an invention giving an imaginary answer to the question, "What might Christ become like, if there really were a world like Narnia and He chose to be incarnate and die and rise again in that world as He actually has done in ours?

Prior to his conversion, Lewis used the word "Moslem" to refer to Muslims, adherents of Islam; following his conversion, however, he started using " Mohammedans " and described Islam as a Christian heresy rather than an independent religion. In a much-cited passage from Mere ChristianityLewis challenged the view that Jesus was a great moral teacher but not God.

He argued that Jesus made several implicit claims to divinity, which would logically exclude that claim:. 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. 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.

C.s. lewis biography books: › c-s-lewis-topbiographies-companion-guides.

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. Although this argument is sometimes called "Lewis's trilemma", Lewis did not invent it but rather developed and popularized it. Lewis's Christian apologetics, and this argument in particular, have been criticized. Philosopher John Beversluis described Lewis's arguments as "textually careless and theologically unreliable", [ ] and this particular argument as logically unsound and an example of a false dilemma.

Wright criticizes Lewis for failing to recognize the significance of Jesus's Jewish identity and setting — an oversight which "at best, drastically short-circuits the argument" and which lays Lewis open to criticism that his argument "doesn't work as history, and it backfires dangerously when historical critics question his reading of the gospels", although he argues that this "doesn't undermine the eventual claim".

C.s. lewis biography books: "The Inklings" is in large

Lewis used a similar argument in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobewhen the old Professor advises his young guests that their sister's claims of a magical c.s. lewis biography books must logically be taken as either lies, madness, or truth. One of the main theses in Lewis's apologia is that there is a common morality known throughout humanity, which he calls " natural law ".

In the first five chapters of Mere ChristianityLewis discusses the idea that people have a standard of behaviour to which they expect people to adhere. Lewis claims that people all over the earth know what this law is and when they break it. He goes on to claim that there must be someone or something behind such a universal set of principles.

These then are the two points that I wanted to make. First, that human beings, all over the earth, have this curious idea that they ought to behave in a certain way, and cannot really get rid of it. Secondly, that they do not in fact behave in that way. They know the Law of Nature; they break it. These two facts are the foundation of all clear thinking about ourselves and the universe we live in.

Lewis also portrays Universal Morality in his works of fiction. In the second chapter of Mere ChristianityLewis recognizes that "many people find it difficult to understand what this Law of Human Nature In responding to the second idea Lewis notes that people often complain that one set of moral ideas is better than another, but that this actually argues for there existing some "Real Morality" to which they are comparing other moralities.

Finally, he notes that sometimes differences in moral codes are exaggerated by people who confuse differences in beliefs about morality with differences in beliefs about facts:. I have met people who exaggerate the differences, because they have not distinguished between differences of morality and differences of belief about facts.

For example, one man said to me, "Three hundred years ago people in England were putting witches to death. If we did — if we really thought that there were people going about who had sold themselves to the devil and received supernatural powers from him in return and were using these powers to kill their neighbours or drive them mad or bring bad weather, surely we would all agree that if anyone deserved the death penalty, then these filthy quislings did.

There is no difference of moral principle here: the difference is simply about matter of fact. It may be a great advance in knowledge not to believe in witches: there is no moral advance in not executing them when you do not think they are there. You would not call a man humane for ceasing to set mousetraps if he did so because he believed there were no mice in the house.

Lewis also had fairly progressive views on the topic of "animal morality", in particular the suffering of animals, as is evidenced by several of his essays: most notably, On Vivisection [ ] and "On the Pains of Animals". Lewis eschewed political involvement and partisan politics, took little interest in transitory political issues, and held many politicians in disdain.

He refused a knighthood for fear that his detractors might then use it to accuse him of holding a political viewpoint, and he saw his role as a Christian apologist. Lewis wrote more than thirty books, allowing him to reach a vast audience, and his works continue to attract thousands of new readers every year. To date, the Narnia books have sold over million copies and been transformed into three major motion pictures.

Enrolls as boarding student at Campbell College, Belfast, Ireland; leaves in December due to respiratory problems. Publishes Spirits in Bondage under the pseudonym Clive Hamilton. Publishes The Allegory of Love. Buy this book. Publishes The Problem of Pain. Begins war-time broadcast talks on Christianity, later collected as Mere Christianity.

Publishes The Screwtape Letters. Publishes The Abolition of Man.