Who is cs lewis biography

In his autobiography, Surprised by Joy, C. On rainy days—and there were many in northern Ireland—he pulled volumes off the shelves and entered into worlds created by authors such as Conan Doyle, E. After brother Warnie was sent off to boarding school in England, Jack became somewhat reclusive. Not only did he lose a mother, his father never fully recovered from her death.

For many years thereafter, both boys felt estranged from their father, and home life was never warm and satisfying again. The death of Mrs. Lewis convinced young Jack that the God he encountered in church and in the Bible his mother gave him was, if not cruel, at least a vague abstraction.

Four or five years later, by or , and with the additional influence of a spiritually unorthodox boarding school matron, Lewis forsook Christianity and became an avowed atheist. By autumn C. Lewis was somewhat adrift. He had lost his faith and his mother, and he felt alienated from his father. He was extremely close to his brother, but they saw one another only on holidays.

A new friendship was beginning with a fellow student, Arthur Greeves, but it was interrupted in September when C. Lewis was sent to Great Bookham, Surrey, to be privately tutored by W. Kirkpatrick, had a profound effect upon the teenaged youth. He introduced him to the classics in Greek, Latin, and Italian literature, and helped him make a beginning in German. Kirkpatrick not only led Lewis to great books, he pushed him to understand them in the original languages.

A most demanding tutor, Kirkpatrick helped Jack learn how to criticize and analyze, and he taught him how to think, speak, and write logically. Consequently, after nearly three years with Kirkpatrick, C.

Lewis was tough—minded and widely read. The debt was large indeed. If Kirkpatrick taught Lewis to think critically—to demand evidence for even the most casual assertions—— Oxford introduced him to a wide horizon of ideas. Lewis entered the world of Oxford in as a student, and he never really left. Despite an interruption to fight in World War I and his professorship at Cambridge beginning in , he always maintained his home and friends in Oxford.

He loved the bookshops, the pubs, and the Bodleian Library, and he revelled in the company of local men who loved to read, write, and discuss books. His attachment to Oxford was so strong that when he taught at Cambridge from to he commuted back to Oxford on weekends so that he could be close to familiar places and beloved friends. It was in Oxford that Lewis pursued things of the mind with fervor.

Ideas, books, and debates were ordinary fare in this heady environment. With no particular purpose in life beyond stimulating his imagination, feeding his intellectual curiosity, and writing for publication and posterity, he thoroughly enjoyed academic life. In he published his first book, a cycle of lyrics titled Spirits in Bondage, which he wrote under the pseudonym Clive Hamilton. In he became a philosophy tutor at University College.

Then in he was elected a Fellow of Magdalen College, where he tutored in English language and literature. The next year his second volume of poetry, Dymer, was published under the name Clive Hamilton.

Alongside the generally self—centered life Lewis was leading, he demonstrated a loyal and generous nature. Janie King Moore, and her adolescent daughter Maureen.

Then in , after completing his first degree, Lewis decided to share lodgings with them so that he could more carefully look out for their needs. This gesture of kindness did more than help Mrs. Moore and Maureen; it got C. Lewis outside of himself and taught him patience. The association with the Moores also introduced him to Mrs. The spiritual awakening continued, enhanced by reading books by George MacDonald and G.

One MacDonald volume called Phantastes had a powerful impact on his thinking. Chesterton as well. Barfield became a theist, and then a Christian, and he frequently badgered Lewis about his materialism. These men became close friends of Lewis. He admired their brilliance and their logic.

Soon Lewis recognized that most of his friends, like his favorite authors——MacDonald, Chesterton, Johnson, Spenser, and Milton——held to this Christian angle of vision which threatened his whole world view. He also published several scholarly works on literature, including English Literature in the 16th Century and Experiment in Criticism Although Lewis went on to publish several works involving religion, he had lost interest in it early in life and only later "converted" to Christianity, joining the Anglican Church.

His autobiography the story of his own life , Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life, fails to explain what happened in his childhood. His headmaster in boarding school, a minister who urged him to "think" by hitting him, may have contributed to this change. Lewis went on to become a professor of English at Cambridge University, England, in Widely read as an adult, his knowledge of literature made him much sought after for his company and conversation.

Lewis thoroughly enjoyed sitting up into the late hours in college rooms talking about literature, poetry, and religion. She was a graduate of Hunter College and had previously been married twice.

When her first husband suffered a heart attack, she turned to prayer. Reading the writings of Lewis, she began attending church. Later, led by his writings to Lewis himself, she divorced her second husband, Williams Gresham, and married Lewis.

She died some three years before her husband. Lewis died at his home in Headington, Oxford, England, on November 24, A major collection of his works is held by Wheaton College in Illinois. Adey, Lionel. Lewis: Writer, Dreamer, and Mentor.

Eerdmans Pub. Como, James T. Lewis at the Breakfast Table and Other Reminiscences. New York: Macmillan, Glaspey, Terry W. He was a Fellow and Tutor in English Literature at Oxford University until , when he was unanimously elected to the Chair of Medieval and Renaissance Literature at Cambridge University, a position he held until his retirement.

Lewis wrote more than thirty books, allowing him to reach a vast audience, and his works continue to attract thousands of new readers every year. To date, the Narnia books have sold over million copies and been transformed into three major motion pictures.

Enrolls as boarding student at Campbell College, Belfast, Ireland; leaves in December due to respiratory problems. Publishes Spirits in Bondage under the pseudonym Clive Hamilton. Publishes The Allegory of Love. Buy this book.

Publishes The Problem of Pain. Begins war-time broadcast talks on Christianity, later collected as Mere Christianity. Publishes The Screwtape Letters. Publishes The Abolition of Man. Publishes the second novel in the Space Trilogy series, Perelandra.

Publishes The Great Divorce.