About the Book
Most popularly known as the author of the children's classic The Chronicles of Narnia, C. S. Lewis was also a prolific poet, essayist, novelist, and Christian writer. His most famous work, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, while known as a children's book is often read as a Christian allegory and remains to this day one of his best-loved works. But Lewis was prolific in a number of areas, including poetry, Christian writing, literary criticism, letters, memoir, autobiography, sermons and more. This set, written by experts, guides readers to a better understanding and appreciation of this important and influential writer.
Clive Staples Lewis was born on November 29, 1898, in Belfast, Northern Ireland. His mother died when he was young, leaving his father to raise him and his older brother Warren. He fought and was wounded in World War I and later became immersed in the spiritual life of Christianity. While he delved into the world of Christian writing, he did not limit himself to one genre and produced a remarkable oeuvre that continues to be widely read, taught, and adored at all levels. As part of the circle known as the Inklings, which consisted of writers and intellectuals, and included J.R.R. Tolkien, Charles Williams, and others, he developed and honed his skills and continued to put out extensive writings. Many different groups now claim him as their own: spanning genres from science fiction to Christian literature, from nonfiction to children's stories, his output remains among the most popular and complex. Here, experts in the field of Lewis studies examine all his works along with the details of his life and the culture in which he lived to give readers the fullest complete picture of the man, the writer, and the husband, alongside his works, his legacy, and his place in English letters.
Table of Contents:
Volume I: An Examined Life
Acknowledgments
Preface
Chapter 1 An Examined Life: Introducing C. S. Lewis
Chapter 2 Lewiss Belfast Childhood (1898-1908)
Chapter 3 Lewiss Schooling: Trials and Tribulations (1908-1917)
Chapter 4 Lewis and Military Service: War and Remembrance (1917-1918)
Chapter 5 Lewis the Reluctant Convert: Surprised by Faith
Chapter 6 Lewis in Oxford: the Student Years (1917-1923)
Chapter 7 Lewis in Oxford: the Early Tutorial Years (1924-1940)
Chapter 8 Lewis in Oxford: the Later Tutorial Years (1940-1953)
Chapter 9 Lewis in Cambridge: the Professorial Years (1954-1963)
Chapter 10 C. S. Lewis and Owen Barfield: Adversaries and Confidantes
Chapter 11 C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien: Friends and Mutual Mentors
Chapter 12 C. S. Lewis and Joy Davidman: The Severe Mercies of Late Romance
Chapter 13 A Grief Observed: Lewis as Diarist
Author Biographical Notes
Volume II: Fantasist, Mythmaker, and Poet
Chapter 1 Patches of Godlight: C. S. Lewis as Imaginative Writer
Chapter 2 Rehabilitating H. G. Wells: C. S. Lewiss Out of the Silent Planet
:Chapter 3 Perelandra: A Tale of Paradise Retained
Chapter 4 That Hideous Strength: Spiritual Wickedness in High Places
Chapter 5 The World of Narnia: Medieval Magic and Morality
Chapter 6 Sons of Adam, Daughters of Eve, Children of Aslan
:Interacting with the Nonhuman in The Chronicles of Narnia
Chapter 7 Cartography and Fantasy: Hidden Treasures in the Maps of The Chronicles of Narnia
Chapter 8 Till We Have Faces: A Study of the Soul and the Self
Chapter 9 C. S. Lewiss Short Fiction and Unpublished Works
Chapter 10 Telling the Truth Upside Down: The Screwtape Letters
Chapter 11 Columns of Light: The Pre-Conversion Narrative Poetry of C. S. Lewis
Chapter 12 Early Lyric Poetry: Spirits in Bondage (1919) and Joy (1924)
Chapter 13 Topical Poems: Lewis Post-Conversion Poetry
Author Biographical Notes
Volume III: C. S. Lewis: Apologist, Philosopher, and Theologian
Chapter 1 The Ecumenical Apologist: Understanding C. S. Lewiss Defense of Christianity
Chapter 2 C. S. Lewis as Allegorist
Chapter 3 Mere Christianity: Uncommon Truth in Common Language
Chapter 4 The Sermons of C. S. Lewis: The Oxford Don as Preacher
Chapter 5 The Abolition of Man: C. S. Lewiss Philosophy of History
Chapter 6 The Great Divorce: Journey to Heaven and hell
Chapter 7 Miracles: C. S. Lewiss Critique of Naturalism
Chapter 8 Stealing Past the Watchful Dragons: C. S. Lewiss Incarnational Aesthetics and Todays Emerging Imagination
Chapter 9 Letters to Malcolm: C. S. Lewis on Prayer
Chapter 10 An Apologists Evening Prayer: Reflecting on C. S. Lewiss Reflections on the Psalms
Chapter 11 Understanding C. S. Lewiss Surprised by Joy: A Most Reluctant Autobiography
Chapter 12 Gifted Amateurs: C. S. Lewis and the Inklings
Author Biographical Notes
Volume IV: C. S. Lewis: Scholar, Teacher, and Public Intellectual
Chapter 1 The Christian Intellectual in the Public Square: C. S. Lewiss Enduring American Reception
Chapter 2 The Letters of C. S. Lewis: Lewis as Correspondent
Chapter 3 The Four Loves: C. S. Lewiss Theology of Love
Chapter 4 C. S. Lewis as Philologist: Studies in Words
Chapter 5 The Inklings Abroad: Reading C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien Outside the U. K. and North America
Chapter 6 The Allegory of Love and The Discarded Image: Lewis as Medievalist
Chapter 7 English Literature in the Sixteenth Century: C. S. Lewis as Literary Historian
Chapter 8 Everymans Tutor: C. S. Lewis on Reading and Criticism
Chapter 9 A Most Potent Rhetoric: C. S. Lewis, Congenital Rhetorician
Chapter 10 C. S. Lewis as Scholar of Metaphor, Narrative and Myth
Chapter 11 C. S. Lewis and the Media: Cinematic and Stage Treatments of Lewiss Life and Work
Chapter 12 C. S. Lewis Scholarship: A Bibliographical Overview
Chapter 13 Valediction From the Shadowlands: C. S. Lewis and the Gospel of Homesickness
Author Biographical Notes
About the Author :
BRUCE L. EDWARDS is Professor and Associate Dean at Bowling Green State University. His works include The C. S. Lewis Readers Encyclopedia, for which he served on the editorial board and wrote 25 entries, The Taste of the Pineapple: Essays on C. S. Lewis as Critic, Reader, and Imaginative Writer, Not a Tame Lion: The Spiritual World of Narnian, and Further Up and Further In: Understanding C. S. Lewis's The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.
Review :
Edwards…the author of five other books on C. S. Lewis, in part seeks to correct what he sees as failings in the approaches taken in recent Lewis biographies. These failings, he believes, include an emphasis on perceived personality defects in the author that taint the treatment of his religious conviction and scholarship and, in contrast, an excessive veneration in some biographies that has tended to reduce consideration of Lewis's scope and accomplishments to a few selected aspects of his life and work. To set the record straight, Edwards has gathered a wide-ranging and well-ordered group of essays from an international panel of contributors and divided them into four volumes meant to cover more comprehensively all major aspects of Lewis's life and career…. [T]his is the most thorough and current collection available of analysis and opinion on Lewis…. [R]ecommended for academic and large public libraries.
The master apologist did not ruminate about himself overmuch. Although he did take his experiences in life into account including his Belfast childhood rife with troubles at school, his service in war, his successes (which were not inconsiderable) at Oxford and Cambridge, his friendships, marriage and bereavement he believed those experiences to be not unique to himself but part of any life. In this he was exceedingly modest, and this set of essays on Lewis's life and work prove so in biographical pieces, critical reviews of works ranging from theology to fantasy, commentary on his role as a Christian intellectual, reviews of his work as a literary historian, tutor and lecturer, and considerations of him as a lover of words.
