British Giant

An afterthought for those of you new members who don't know. The POE website is owned by Chris and Sarah Plows (Our son-in-law and daughter) and they look after (sponsor) my website www.cslewistours.com as their contribution to what I am trying to achieve here in Oxford; that is create an awareness of C S Lewis which currently doesn't exist.

Jack (C. S. Lewis) and Warren inherited a little money after their father's death. Together with Mrs Moore, they bought a house in Oxford called The Kilns. Jack was teaching at the university and writing his books on the history of English literature. In 1937 he wrote the first of his science fiction books, Out of the Silent Planet.
During the Second World War Jack, wanting to do his part, joined the Home Guard. Warren was still in the army. The Kilns received several evacuees, who were an early inspiration for the Chronicles of Narnia.
The Problem of Pain was published in 1940 and The Screwtape Letters in 1942. Jack began to get a large volume of post from admirers. He had recruited Warren to type his handwritten manuscripts: now he relied on him to act as a secretary too.
Jack also gave a series of talks about Christianity on BBC radio between 1941 and 1944. After the first set of talks was well received he also presented some lectures to soldiers, which he considered war work. His broadcasts resulted in many people converting to Christianity - and a lot more letters for Jack to answer. The text of his talks was published in a book called Mere Christianity.
Lewis's literary output in these years was considerable. He divided his time between academic writing, popular apologetics and fiction. By 1948, when a debate with Elizabeth Anscombe convinced him he had been arguing the case for God in the wrong way, Mrs Moore was becoming ill. Jack spent much of his time looking after her.
The seven Chronicles of Narnia were written and published between 1948 and 1956. Jack had been writing his autobiography Surprised by Joy at around the same time. Meanwhile, Mrs Moore's health continued to deteriorate; she went to a nursing home and died there in 1951. Warren was not overly distraught. Her death gave the brothers more freedom; Jack was relieved from some of his household duties, but he was also free to marry.

In 1952 Joy Gresham came to England. Joy was a New York teacher of English literature, a former communist and a recent convert to Christianity: her parents had been Jewish, though her father was secular and her mother was not very religious. Joy had a husband, though at the time their marriage was in trouble. They had two sons, Douglas and David.
Joy had been corresponding with Lewis for two years before her visit. She was a sharp, outspoken and witty woman, just the sort to appeal to Lewis. When, on her return to America, she found her husband committing adultery and their marriage beyond repair, she moved to England with her sons.
Lewis had taken a teaching job at Cambridge university, spending weekends and holidays at home. Joy and her sons moved into a house not far from the Kilns. They were frequent visitors. In 1954 Joy's husband divorced her. In 1956 her work permit expired and she faced having to move back to America. Lewis decided to marry her.
Lewis claimed the civil marriage ceremony, quietly performed in a registry office, was a purely legal measure to allow Joy to stay in the country. Nobody is quite sure of their feelings for each other at that stage, but shortly afterwards some news arrived that changed everything. Joy was diagnosed with advanced cancer and did not have long to live. Lewis realised he loved Joy and decided to make their marriage public. The ceremony was performed around Joy's hospital bed. When she was able to leave hospital, Joy, Douglas and David moved into the Kilns.
Her health improved. Lewis prayed to be allowed to take some of her pain on himself: it seems to have worked. His health deteriorated for a few months while Joy recovered: an occurrence he happily described as a miracle. Married life seemed to suit Jack even at his late age (he was in his 60s). He enjoyed more than three years with Joy before her cancer returned and claimed her life in July 1960.
The story of Jack and Joy's marriage is told, with some liberties taken with chronology, in a play and film called Shadowlands.
Joy's death was hard for Lewis to cope with and tested his Christian faith. He kept a record of his thoughts and feelings throughout the grieving process, and published it, using a pseudonym, as A Grief Observed. (So many people recommended the book to Lewis to help in his own grief that at last he was forced to admit he wrote it.)
"No one ever told me grief felt so like fear," reads the opening sentence of A Grief Observed. "I am not afraid, but the sensation is like being afraid. The same fluttering in the stomach, the same restlessness, the yawning. I keep on swallowing." It is an honest account from a mourning widower: Lewis did not flinch from recording the times when his faith was tested. By the end of the book he had made his peace with God.
C.S. Lewis died on the 22nd November 1963. He never wanted his death to be widely acknowledged, and he got his way. John F Kennedy, president of the USA, was assassinated on the same day.

Thanks for that Michael although not strictly true! At least you know who C S Lewis was then, or did you have to research it?

Awh shucks Diana, I'm embarassed but thanks dear friend!