C. S. Lewis

1898–1963 · Oxford scholar and author of The Chronicles of Narnia and Mere Christianity.

Theologians & Church Fathers Postwar Contemporary

Clive Staples Lewis was born in Belfast, Ireland, and was called Jack by family and friends. His mother died when he was nine, and he was sent to English boarding schools he disliked. He served as an infantry officer in the First World War and was wounded in 1918. He studied at Oxford and became a fellow of Magdalen College, teaching English literature. Raised in the Church of Ireland, he had abandoned Christianity as a boy, but conversations with friends, including J. R. R. Tolkien, helped bring him back to belief in God in 1929 and to Christianity in 1931, a journey he described in Surprised by Joy. With Tolkien and others he met in a group called the Inklings. During the Second World War his radio talks on the BBC became Mere Christianity. He wrote The Screwtape Letters, science fiction novels, scholarly books on medieval literature, and the seven Chronicles of Narnia for children. In 1954 he became a professor at Cambridge. In 1956 he married the American writer Joy Davidman, who died of cancer in 1960. He died in 1963.

C. S. Lewis is also an author in the library: author page and works.

Faith: His parents belonged to the Church of Ireland, in which he was baptized; he later became a noted Christian writer. Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica

Key dates

1898 Born in Belfast
1925 Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford
1931 Becomes a Christian
1942 The Screwtape Letters; BBC talks
1950 The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
1963 Dies in Oxford

Fun facts

When he was four, after his dog Jacksie died, Lewis took the dog's name and at first would answer to nothing else. Later he accepted 'Jack', the name his friends used all his life. (Source: C. S. Lewis (Wikipedia))
As a boy he loved Beatrix Potter's stories and wrote and illustrated his own tales about talking animals. (Source: C. S. Lewis (Wikipedia))