C.S. Lewis: "...'Where Dreams...Come To Life, Come Real...."

The Screwtape Letters, The Chronicles of Narnia, The Space Trilogy, Mere Christianity, Surprised By Joy. These books, known throughout the world, came from the pen of Clive Staples (C.S.) Lewis,  one of the last century's leading scholars, novelists, and Christian apologists, born on this day in 1898. I was introduced to the author through a gift. My best friend gave me a copy of The Four Loves as medication for a wounded relationship with Marti, the girl of my dreams at the time. Eventually, she rekindled a friendship with a professor of English at UNC Chapel Hill and from my perspective the story of their relationship was left to Heaven. On the other hand I was left with a life-long literary relationship with Lewis.

C.S. Lewis in 1947                             Arthur Strong

Lewis had a extraordinarily broad literary career immersed in a world of teaching and scholarship that included a close friendship with his colleague, J. R.R. Tolkein. Like most writers he appreciated his privacy but was by no means reclusive and fondly recalled as an excellent lecturer and conversationalist who loved humor. It's unfortunate that we have so little audiovisual material featuring Lewis but there is one brief tape from the World War II era where he discusses topics that would later be incorporated into his book, Mere Christianity:

From this writer's perspective, if you cannot enjoy a Lewis book you simply haven't read enough of his work. Readers of any age and ability will surely find something of interest among his more than eighty titles of poetry, fiction, and non-fiction. Choose...and enjoy.

Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.

                  from The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, C.S. Lewis, 1950

Sources

Text: 
title quote, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, 1952