C. S. Lewis – A Life

by Alister McGrath

  335 Lewis seems to have the imagery of the nighttime conversation between Christ and Nicodemus (John 3) in mind in later reflections on this conversation.

  336 Letters to Arthur Greeves, 1 October and 18 October 1931; Letters, vol. 1, 972–977.

  337 Letter to Arthur Greeves, 1 October 1931; Letters, vol. 1, 974.

  338 Letter to Arthur Greeves, 18 October 1931; Letters, vol. 1, 976.

  339 Ibid., 977.

  340 Miracles, 218. For the importance of this notion, see McGrath, “A Gleam of Divine Truth: The Concept of ‘Myth’ in Lewis’s Thought,” in The Intellectual World of C. S. Lewis.

  341 “Myth Became Fact,” in Essay Collection, 142.

  342 J. R. R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion (London: Allen & Unwin, 1977), 41.

  343 Surprised by Joy, 267.

  344 Ibid., 275. Whipsnade Park Zoo, located near Dunstable in Bedfordshire, about 50 miles (80 kilometres) from Oxford, opened in May 1931.

  345 See, for example, Downing, Most Reluctant Convert, 155.

  346 W. H. Lewis, “Memoir of C. S. Lewis,” 19.

  347 Holmer, C. S. Lewis: The Shape of His Faith and Thought, 22–45.

  348 For example, see the letter to Warren Lewis, 24 October 1931; Letters, vol. 2, 1–11. This letter suggests that Lewis has not yet resolved certain theological issues.

  349 Letter to Warren Lewis, 24 October 1931; Letters, vol. 2, 2. Warnie had left England for his last tour of duty in China on 9 October, 1931, arriving in Shanghai on 17 November.

  350 W. H. Lewis, “Memoir of C. S. Lewis,” 19.

  351 Surprised by Joy, 276.

  352 Since about 1960, the Spanish bluebell (Hyacinthoides hispanica) has become increasingly widespread in England. Lewis’s reference is clearly to the traditional English bluebell.

  353 ZSL Whipsnade Zoo, “Beautiful Bluebells,” press release, 17 May 2004.

  354 Surprised by Joy, 6.

  355 Note the cornflower theme in the early part of E. M. Forster’s classic Room with a View (1908).

  356 See his letter to Warren Lewis, 14 June 1932; Letters, vol. 2, 84.

  357 Letter to Warren Lewis, 25 December 1931; Letters, vol. 2, 30.

  358 This chapel, which took its name from the street on which it was located, no longer exists. “Bubbling Well Street” was renamed “Nanjing Road West” in 1945.

  359 The Pilgrim’s Regress, 5.

  360 Letter to Arthur Greeves, 4 February 1933; Letters, vol. 2, 95.

  361 Letter to Arthur Greeves, 12 September 1933; Letters, vol. 2, 125.

  362 Letter to Warren Lewis, 22 November 1931; Letters, vol. 2, 14–16.

  363 Letter to Thomasine, 14 December 1959; Letters, vol. 3, 1109.

  364 Sayer, Jack, 198.

  365 Lawlor in Gibb, Light on C. S. Lewis, 71–73. See further Lawlor, C. S. Lewis: Memories and Reflections. Lawlor later became Professor of English Language and Literature at the University of Keele.

  366 John Wain in Gibb, Light on C. S. Lewis, 72.

  367 Wain, Sprightly Running, 138.

  368 Hooper, C. S. Lewis: A Companion and Guide, 42.

  369 Letter to Cynthia Donnelly, 14 August 1954; Letters, vol. 3, 503.

  370 Wilson, C. S. Lewis: A Biography, 161.

  371 Letter to Albert Lewis, 28 August 1924; Letters, vol. 1, 633.

  372 This image is used of Lewis by John Wain, in Roma Gill (ed.), William Empson (London: Routledge, 1977), 117.

  373 See the “faculty lecturer lists” published in Oxford University Calendar 1935 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1935), 12.

  374 Oxford University Calendar 1936 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1936), 423 n. 9.

  375 The Discarded Image, 216.

  376 The Four Loves, 166.

  377 Letter to Guy Pocock, 17 January 1933; Letters, vol. 2, 94.

  378 The Pilgrim’s Regress, 5.

  379 Ibid., 5.

  380 “The Vision of John Bunyan,” in Selected Literary Essays, 149.

  381 Poems, 81.

  382 Pilgrim’s Regress, 11–12.

  383 Ibid., 8.

  384 Ibid., 10.

  385 For Lewis’s exploration of the significance of desire and longing, see McGrath, “Arrows of Joy: Lewis’s Argument from Desire,” in The Intellectual World of C. S. Lewis.

  386 The Pilgrim’s Regress, 10.

  387 Ibid., 177.

  388 Acts 9:9-19; 2 Corinthians 3:13-16.

  389 Letter to Warren Lewis, 22 November 1931; Letters, vol. 2, 16.

  390 Tolkien mentions this in a letter to Christopher Tolkien, 30 January 1945; Tolkien, Letters, 108.

  391 Letter to Arthur Greeves, 4 February 1933; Letters, vol. 2, 96.

  392 Warnie’s best books, in my view, are The Splendid Century: Some Aspects of French Life in the Reign of Louis XIV (1953) and Levantine Adventurer: The Travels and Missions of the Chevalier d’Arvieux, 1653–1697 (1962).

  393 J. R. R. Tolkien to W. L. White, 11 September 1967; Tolkien, Letters, 388.

  394 Williams, To Michal from Serge, 227.

  395 J. R. R. Tolkien to W. L. White, 11 September 1967; Tolkien, Letters, 388.

  396 Letter to Charles Williams, 11 March 1936; Letters, vol. 2, 183.

  397 Letter to Janet Spens, 16 November 1934; Letters, vol. 2, 147–149.

  398 Owen Barfield; J. A. W. Bennett; David Cecil; Nevill Coghill; James Dundas-Grant; Hugo Dyson; Adam Fox; Colin Hardie; Robert E. Havard; C. S. Lewis; Warren Lewis; Gervase Mathew; R. B. McCallum; C. E. Stevens; Christopher Tolkien; J. R. R. Tolkien; John Wain; Charles Williams; C. L. Wrenn.

  399 Tolkien to Stanley Unwin, 4 June 1938; Tolkien, Letters, 36. It is not clear whether Tolkien is here referring to the Inklings or “The Cave,” a related group which was mainly concerned with English faculty politics. For “The Cave,” see Lewis’s letter to Warren Lewis, 17 March 1940; Letters, vol. 2, 365.

  400 Wain, Sprightly Running, 185.

  401 Letter to Leo Baker, 28 April 1935; Letters, vol. 2, 161.

  402 Letter to Albert Lewis, 10 July 1928; Letters, vol. 1, 766–767.

  403 The Clarendon Press is an imprint of Oxford University Press.

  404 Letter to Guy Pocock, 27 February 1933; Letters, vol. 2, 98.

  405 Bodleian Library, Oxford, MS. Eng. c. 6825, fols. 48–49.

  406 Allegory of Love, 1.

  407 Ibid., 2. The phrase courtly love is the traditional English translation of the French term amour courtois, somewhat tenuously derived from the Provençal term fin’ amors.

  408 See, for example, John C. Moore, “‘Courtly Love’: A Problem of Terminology,” Journal of the History of Ideas 40, no. 4 (1979): 621–632.

  409 See, for example, C. Stephen Jaeger, The Origins of Courtliness: Civilizing Trends and the Formation of Courtly Ideals, 937–1210 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1991).

  410 David Hill Radcliffe, Edmund Spenser: A Reception History (Columbia, SC: Camden House, 1996), 168.

  411 Oxford University Calendar 1938 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1938), 460 n. 12.

  412 Gardner, “Clive Staples Lewis, 1898–1963,” 423.

  413 See Lewis’s Rehabilitations. Lewis here seeks to rehabilitate both individuals and schools, and offers a particularly interesting assessment of differences in style between Shakespeare and Milton.

  414 “On the Reading of Old Books,” in Essay Collection, 439.

  415 Ibid., 440.

  416 Ibid., 439.

  417 “Learning in War-Time,” in Essay Collection, 584.

  418 “De Descriptione Temporum,” in Selected Literary Essays, 13.

  419 “De Audiendis Poetis,” in Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Literature, 2–3.

  420 Experiment in Criticism, 140–141.

  421 Ibid., 137.

  422 Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays and Lectures (New York: Library of America, 1983), 259.

  423 Experiment in Criticism, 85.

  424 The Personal Heresy, 11.

  425 Now known by the title
“Learning in War-Time,” in Essay Collection, 579–586. Quote at page 586.

  426 Letter to Warren Lewis, 2 September 1939; Letters, vol. 2, 270–271.

  427 Letter to Arthur Greeves, 27 December 1940; Letters, vol. 3, 1538.

  428 Letter to Warren Lewis, 11 August 1940; Letters, vol. 2, 433.

  429 Letter to Warren Lewis, 24 November 1939; Letters, vol. 2, 296.

  430 J. R. R. Tolkien to Christopher Bretherton, 16 July 1964; Tolkien, Letters, 349.

  431 Letter to Arthur Greeves, 27 December 1940; Letters, vol. 3, 1538.

  432 Letter to Warren Lewis, 11 November 1939; Letters, vol. 2, 287.

  433 Ibid., 288–289.

  434 Williams, To Michal from Serge, 253.

  435 J. R. R. Tolkien to Rayner Unwin, 12 September 1965; Tolkien, Letters, 362. A similar point was made in 1954 on the publication of The Fellowship of the Ring: J. R. R. Tolkien to Rayner Unwin, 9 September 1954; Tolkien, Letters, 184. Both these letters were written at a time when Tolkien’s friendship with Lewis had cooled, giving added significance to his warm commendations.

  436 Letter to Warren Lewis, 3 December 1939; Letters, vol. 2, 302.

  437 See J. R. R. Tolkien to Christopher Tolkien, 31 May 1944; Tolkien, Letters, 83.

  438 The Problem of Pain, 91.

  439 “On Science Fiction,” in Essay Collection, 451.

  440 The Problem of Pain, 3.

  441 Ibid., 16.

  442 Ibid., 39.

  443 Ibid., 80.

  444 Letter to Warren Lewis, 3 December 1939; Letters, vol. 2, 302. Emphasis in original.

  445 Letter to Arthur Greeves, 3 April 1930; Letters, vol. 1, 889.

  446 Lewis discusses Adams primarily in his correspondence with Mary Neylan (1908–1997), his former student. Lewis was godfather to Neylan’s daughter, Sarah.

  447 Letter to Sister Penelope, 24 October 1940; Letters, vol. 2, 452.

  448 Letter to Mary Willis Shelburne, 31 March 1954; Letters, vol. 3, 449.

  449 The best study is Dorsett, Seeking the Secret Place, 85–107.

  450 Letter to Mary Neylan, 30 April 1941; Letters, vol. 2, 482.

  451 The BBC suspended local radio transmissions in 1939, and did not resume them until 1946.

  452 See Wolfe, The Churches and the British Broadcasting Corporation 1922–1956.

  453 See Justin Phillips, C. S. Lewis at the BBC (New York: HarperCollins, 2002), 77–94.

  454 All correspondence between the BBC and Lewis is held at the BBC Written Archives Centre [WAC], Caversham Park. James Welch to Lewis, 7 February 1941, file 910/TAL 1a, BBC Written Archives Centre, Caversham Park.

  455 Letter to James Welch, 10 February 1941; Letters, vol. 2, 470.

  456 Eric Fenn to Lewis, 11 February 1941, 910/TAL 1a, BBC Written Archives Centre, Caversham Park.

  457 Letter to Sister Penelope, 15 May 1941; Letters, vol. 2, 485.

  458 “Christian Apologetics,” in Essay Collection, 153.

  459 Ibid., 155.

  460 Eric Fenn to Lewis, 21 February 1941, 910/TAL 1a, BBC Written Archives Centre, Caversham Park.

  461 Letter to Sister Penelope, 15 May 1941; Letters, vol. 2, 484–485.

  462 Letter to Arthur Greeves, 25 May 1941; Letters, vol. 2, 486.

  463 Letter to J. S. A. Ensor, 13 March 1944; Letters, vol. 2, 606.

  464 Eric Fenn to Lewis, 13 May 1941, 910/TAL 1a, BBC Written Archives Centre, Caversham Park.

  465 Eric Fenn to Lewis, 9 June 1941, 910/TAL 1a, BBC Written Archives Centre, Caversham Park.

  466 Eric Fenn to Lewis, 24 June 1941, 910/TAL 1a, BBC Written Archives Centre, Caversham Park.

  467 Internal Circulating Memo HG/PVH, 15 July 1941, file 910/TAL 1a, BBC Written Archives Centre, Caversham Park.

  468 Eric Fenn to Lewis, 22 July 1941, file 910/TAL 1a, BBC Written Archives Centre, Caversham Park.

  469 Eric Fenn to Lewis, 4 September 1941, file 910/TAL 1a, BBC Written Archives Centre, Caversham Park.

  470 Eric Fenn to Lewis, 5 December 1941, file 910/TAL 1a, BBC Written Archives Centre, Caversham Park.

  471 Miracles, 218. For the importance of this notion, see McGrath, “A ‘Mere Christian’: Anglicanism and Lewis’s Religious Identity,” in The Intellectual World of C. S. Lewis.

  472 For an exploration of this point, see Wolfe and Wolfe, C. S. Lewis and the Church.

  473 Broadcast Talks, 5.

  474 Eric Fenn to Lewis, 18 February 1942, file 910/TAL 1a, BBC Written Archives Centre, Caversham Park.

  475 Eric Fenn to Lewis, 15 September 1942, file 910/TAL 1a, BBC Written Archives Centre, Caversham Park.

  476 Letter to Eric Fenn, 25 March 1944; Letters, vol. 2, 609.

  477 Letter to Warren Lewis, 20 July 1940; Letters, vol. 2, 426.

  478 These comments are found in a preface written by Lewis in May 1960 for a later edition of this work, explaining more about its composition: The Screwtape Letters and Screwtape Proposes a Toast (London: Geoffrey Bles, 1961), xxi.

  479 The Screwtape Letters, 88.

  480 J. R. R.Tolkien to Michael Tolkien, November 1963?; Tolkien, Letters, 342.

  481 Oliver Quick to William Temple, 24 July 1943; William Temple Papers, vol. 39, fol. 269, Lambeth Palace Library. For the significance of Lewis’s approach to theology, see McGrath, “Outside the ‘Inner Ring’: Lewis as a Theologian,” in The Intellectual World of C. S. Lewis.

  482 Lillian Lang to J. Warren MacAlpine, 16 June 1948, file 910/TAL 1b, BBC Written Archives Centre, Caversham Park.

  483 “On the Reading of Old Books,” in Essay Collection, 439.

  484 Richard Baxter, The Church History of the Government by Bishops (London: Thomas Simmons, 1681), folio b.

  485 English Literature in the Sixteenth Century, 454.

  486 Mere Christianity, 11–12. See further McGrath, “A ‘Mere Christian’: Anglicanism and Lewis’s Religious Identity,” in The Intellectual World of C. S. Lewis.

  487 W. R. Inge, Protestantism (London: Nelson, 1936), 86 (Wade Center, Wheaton College, Wheaton, IL).

  488 For a good analysis, see Giles Watson, “Dorothy L. Sayers and the Oecumenical Penguin.”

  489 Farrer, “The Christian Apologist,” in Gibb, Light on C. S. Lewis, 37. For further discussion of Lewis’s approach to apologetics, see McGrath, “Reason, Experience, and Imagination: Lewis’s Apologetic Method,” in The Intellectual World of C. S. Lewis.

  490 Mere Christianity, 21.

  491 Ibid., 24.

  492 Ibid., 8.

  493 Ibid., 25.

  494 Ibid., 135.

  495 Ibid., 137. For a careful evaluation of this line of argument, see McGrath, “Arrows of Joy: Lewis’s Argument from Desire,” in The Intellectual World of C. S. Lewis.

  496 Ibid., 136–7.

  497 A Preface to “Paradise Lost,” 80.

  498 “Is Theology Poetry?” in Essay Collection, 21. For Lewis’s use of the image of the sun, see McGrath, “The Privileging of Vision: Lewis’s Metaphors of Light, Sun, and Sight,” in The Intellectual World of C. S. Lewis.

  499 Letter to Arthur Greeves, 11 December 1944; Letters, vol. 3, 1555.

  500 Mere Christianity, 52.

  501 Ibid., 123.

  502 Lewis’s views on this matter can be found in Mere Christianity, 104–113.

  503 The text, which was found tucked into Tolkien’s copy of Lewis’s pamphlet Christian Behaviour, is included in Tolkien’s published correspondence: Tolkien, Letters, 59–62.

  504 Lewis to Emrys Evans [Principal, University College of North Wales], 30 October 1941; Letters, vol. 2, 494.

  505 A Preface to “Paradise Lost,” 1.

  506 Ibid., 62–63.

  507 The Newcastle campus of the University of Durham formally became a university in its own right in 1963, with the ownership of the Riddell Memorial Lectures being transferred to the new University of Newcastle.

  508 The Abolition of Man, 18.