C.S. Lewis

One of the most influential writers of his generation, scholar and author Clive Staples Lewis wrote more than thirty books in his lifetime, including academic publications and works of popular philosophy but remains best-known for creating the wonderful fantasy world of Narnia.

Read on

Biography

Cair Paravel to the Eastern Sea

Born in Belfast, Lewis’s early career didn’t mark him out as an obvious figure to create one of the best-loved works of fantasy fiction. A distinguished academic, he was educated at Oxford University and, after serving in the British Army during the First World War, returned to take up the post of Tutor of English Literature at Magdalen College, Oxford. Lewis had a life-long love of fantasy literature, myth and folklore - an interest fostered by his long-friendship with fellow academic and The Lord of the Rings’ creator J.R.R. Tolkien. The pair became friends in 1926 and were both members of the literary circle, The Inklings, meeting regularly in the Eagle and Child pub in Oxford to discuss ideas, philosophy and religion.

There is evidence that Lewis had been imagining ideas for the series that would become his Chronicles of Narnia as early as 1914 but he didn’t publish the first novel in the series, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, until 1950. He claimed that the world began with the image of the figure who would become Lucy Pevensie’s friend, Mr Tumnus, saying, ‘The Lion all began with a picture of a Faun carrying an umbrella and parcels in a snowy wood. This picture had been in my mind since I was about sixteen. Then one day, when I was about forty, I said to myself: 'Let's try to make a story about it.’ Lewis addressed the first Narnia story to his goddaughter Lucy Barfield, saying in his letter to her ‘you are already too old for fairy tales, and by the time it is printed and bound you will be older still. But some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.’

Faith and Fellowship