C.S. Lewis

C.S. Lewis

Step into the magic wardrobe! Meet the creator of The Chronicles of Narnia... best-selling author C.S. Lewis.
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Clive Staples Lewis, commonly known as C.S. Lewis (1898-1963) is the Irish author of The Chronicles of Narnia among other popular titles. Lewis’ novels and essays endeared him to his contemporaries as well as to modern audiences who continue to find wisdom and joy in his work.

The books that make up The Chronicles of Narnia series are perhaps the best known of Lewis’ work. Titles in the Narnia series include The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (1950), Prince Caspian: The Return to Narnia (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) – which won the prestigious Carnegie Medal in 1956.

The Chronicles of Narnia has been adapted for film, introducing Lewis’ spellbinding story to a new generation. Lewis In addition to the Narnia stories, Lewis wrote dozens of books throughout his career. His books spanned both fiction and nonfiction and are popular the world over, having been translated into more than 30 languages.

Lewis married American writer and poet Joy Davidman in 1956 – however their marriage was short-lived, with Davidman dying of cancer just four years later at the age of 45. In the aftermath of Joy’s death, Lewis wrote A Grief Observed (1961) as an honest reflection on life, death, and faith in the face of despair.

C.S. Lewis was born Clive Staples Lewis on November 29, 1898 in Belfast, Ireland. He was known to friends and family as Jack. He died in Oxford on November 22, 1963 – the same day as John F Kennedy was assassinated and fellow author Aldous Huxley died. Lewis is buried in Poets’ Corner at Westminster Abbey in London.
C.S. Lewis’ first published book was a collection of poetry titled Spirits in Bondage (1919), written under the pseudonym Clive Hamilton – Hamilton being his mother’s maiden name. This collection of poems was written at a time when Lewis had just entered England’s prestigious Oxford University on a scholarship, and in the period soon after when Lewis served as a soldier in the trenches during World War I. In a letter to a friend at the time, Lewis described Spirits in Bondage as, “mainly strung around the idea that I mentioned to you before – that nature is wholly diabolical and malevolent and that God, if he exists, is outside of and in opposition to the cosmic arrangements.”

This exploration of theism is an ongoing theme in Lewis’ work and life. Though raised in a Christian family, Lewis moved away from religion in adolescence and young adulthood. He returned to Christianity as an adult, in 1931. Lewis tells of his faith journey in his book, Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life. This return to faith informs much of the work Lewis produced from then on, including The Pilgrim’s Regress (1933), Mere Christianity (1941), and The Screwtape Letters (1942). Even The Chronicles of Narnia are said to be “an imaginative re-telling of the Christian ‘grand narrative,’ fleshed out with ideas Lewis absorbed from the western literary tradition”. Lewis is also known as a theologian and Christian apologetic for his body of work mounting thoroughly reasoned arguments in defense of Christianity.

Given Lewis’ fantasy literature it may come as no great surprise that he maintained a decades-long friendship with fellow author J.R.R. Tolkien, the author of The Lord of the Rings. They met at Oxford where they were both part of The Inklings, an informal, and now renowned, literary circle.
There is more than one way to rediscover the magic of C.S Lewis’ beloved stories. Start your adventure in the land of Narnia with the BBC’s full cast dramatization of the complete Chronicles of Narnia – a performance that our listeners are describing as “a fabulous dramatic adaptation” of the C.S. Lewis classic. Want to go back to where it all began and experience all seven books complete and unabridged? Get started with the first audiobook in the Narnia series, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
Experience a seminal piece of theological exploration by C.S. Lewis: Mere Christianity is a collection of writings that Lewis first gave as compelling war-time broadcasts on the BBC about what it means to be Christian.