C. S. Lewis

I have decided to post a biographical note on some famous persons sporadically--or in other words, whenever I have the time, as I am also supposed to be posting some reviews and quotes from good literature when I can fit it in. I am ashamed to say that all I did was cut and paste from the C. S. Lewis website, but hey, if I had to do it off my own back it would never have come!

So I have decided to start with my favourite author: C. S. Lewis.

1898 Clive Staples Lewis was born on November 29 in Belfast, Northern Ireland, to Albert J. Lewis (1863-1929) and Florence Augusta Hamilton Lewis (1862-1908). His brother Warren Hamilton Lewis had been born on June 16, 1895

1908 Flora Hamilton Lewis died of cancer on August 23, Albert Lewis' (her husband's) birthday. In September Lewis was enrolled at Wynyard School, Watford, Hertfordshire referred to by C.S. Lewis as "Oldie's School" or "Belsen".

1910 Lewis left "Belsen" in June and, in September, was enrolled as a boarding student at Campbell College, Belfast, one mile from "Little Lea," where he remained until November, when he was withdrawn upon developing serious respiratory difficulties.

1911 Lewis was sent to Malvern, England, which was famous as a health resort, especially for those with lung problems. Lewis was enrolled as a student at Cherbourg House (which he referred to as "Chartres"), a prep school close by Malvern College where Warnie was enrolled as a student. Jack remained there until June 1913. It was during this time that he abandoned his childhood Christian faith. He entered Malvern College itself (which he dubbed "Wyvern") in September 1913 and stayed until the following June.

1914 In April, Lewis met Arthur Greeves (1895-1966), of whom he said, in 1933, "After my brother, my oldest and most intimate friend."

1916 In February, Lewis first read George MacDonald's, Phantastes, which powerfully "baptized his imagination" and impressed him with a deep sense of the holy.

1917 From April 26 until September, Lewis was a student at University College, Oxford. Upon the outbreak of WWI, he enlisted in the British army and was billeted in Keble College, Oxford, for officer's training.

1918 On April 15 Lewis was wounded on Mount Berenchon during the Battle of Arras. He was discharged in December 1919.

1919 The February issue of Reveille contained "Death in Battle," Lewis' first publication in other than school magazines.

1925 On May 20, Lewis was elected a Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, where he served as tutor in English Language and Literature for 29 years.

1929 Lewis became a theist: "In the Trinity Term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed...." Albert Lewis died on September 24.

1931 Lewis became a Christian: One evening in September, Lewis had a long talk on Christianity with J.R.R. Tolkien (a devout Roman Catholic) and Hugo Dyson. That evening's discussion was important in bringing about the following day's event that Lewis recorded in Surprised by Joy: "When we [Warnie and Jack] set out [by motorcycle to the Whipsnade Zoo] I did not believe that Jesus Christ was the Son of God, and when we reached the zoo I did."

1933 The fall term marked the beginning of Lewis' convening of a circle of friends dubbed "The Inklings." For the next 16 years, on through 1949, they continued to meet in Jack's rooms at Magdalen College on Thursday evenings

1935 Wrote the volume on 16th Century English Literature for the Oxford History of English Literature series. Published in 1954, it became a classic.

1937 Lewis received the Gollancz Memorial Prize for Literature in recognition of The Allegory of Love (a study in medieval tradition).

1941 From May 2 until November 28, The Guardian published 31 "Screwtape Letters" in weekly installments. Lewis was paid 2 pounds sterling for each letter and gave the money to charity.

1942 The first meeting of the "Socratic Club" was held in Oxford. Lewis gave five live radio talks on Sunday evenings on the subject "What Christians Believe." On eight consecutive Sundays Lewis gave a series of live radio talks known as "Christian Behavior."

1943 In February, at the University of Durham, Lewis delivered the Riddell Memorial Lectures, a series of three lectures subsequently published as The Abolition of Man.

1944 On seven consecutive Tuesdays, Lewis gave the pre-recorded talks known as "Beyond Personality." Taken together, all of Lewis' BBC radio broadcast talks were eventually published under the title Mere Christianity. The Great Divorce was published in weekly installments in The Guardian.

1946 Lewis awarded honorary Doctor of Divinity by the University of St. Andrews.

1952 In September, Lewis met Joy Davidman Gresham, fifteen years his junior for the first time.

1954 In June, Lewis accepted the Chair of Medieval and Renaissance Literature at Cambridge. His review of Tolkien' Fellowship of the Ring appeared in Time and Tide in August.

1955 Lewis assumed his duties at Cambridge.

1956 In December, a bedside marriage was performed in accordance with the rites of the Church of England in Wingfield Hospital. Joy's death was thought to be imminent. On August 19 and 20, he made tapes of ten talks on The Four Loves in London.

1960 Joy died on July 13 at the age of 45.

1963 Lewis died at 5:30 p.m. at The Kilns, one week before his 65th birthday on Friday, November 22; the same day on which President Kennedy was assassinated and Aldous Huxley died.

His grave is in the yard of Holy Trinity Church in Headington Quarry, Oxford. Warren Lewis died on Monday, April 9, 1973. Their names are on a single stone bearing the inscription "Men must endure their going hence." Warnie had written, "...there was a Shakespearean calendar hanging on the wall of the room where she [our mother] died, and my father preserved for the rest of his life the leaf for that day, with its quotation: 'Men must endure their going hence'." --W.H. Lewis, "Memoir," in Letters of C.S. Lewis.

P.S. I am sorry that it is so long, I couldn't edit it any more!