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C.S. Lewis

Born Nov 29 1898 Died Nov 22 1963

Clive Staples ("Jack") Lewis was born in Belfast Northern Ireland, second son of Albert James Lewis and Flora Augusta Hamilton Lewis. He and his older brother Warren were raised by their parents in a home surrounded by books, which was probably a big influence on Clive Lewis's later life.

Lewis's mother died when he was ten years of age and he was shattered by his mother's death. He took refuge in writing stories, and his father sent him and his brother, Warren, to Wynard school in England

In April 1914 Lewis met Arthur Greeves who became his closest friend next to his brother. It was while he was at Cherborg School, Malvern, England that Clive Lewis lost all interest in the christian faith, instead taking great interest in old Norse Mythology. After completing extensive literal and philiosphical studies under the private tutation of W.T. Kirkpatrick he won a scholarship to University College Oxford.

During the first World War he attended Oxford, also enlisted the British army and was then billeted to Keble College in Oxford for training. After being commissioned as an officer in the Somerset Light Infantry he had seen frontline action in the Somme by his 19th birthday. Though getting injured, he survived the war and was discharged from the army in 1918. In 1919 the February issue of Reveille contained Death in Battlewhich Lewis had written. His first publication apart from those he wrote in school magazines. Continuing his studies in University College Oxford he received First in Honour Moderations in Greek and Latin literature and by 1920 received a First in Greats in Philosphy and Ancient History.

In 1925 Lewis was elected a Fellow of Magdalen College Oxford and served as a tutor in English Language and Literature. "Dymer" was his first book-length poem published in 1929 under the pseudonym of Clive Hamilton. After converting back to his christian faith in 1931 C.S. Lewis published The Pilgrims's Regress and in 1936 his publication of The Allergory of Love received the Gollance Memorial Prize for Literature.

By 1938 Lewis published his first sci-fi novel Out Of The Silent Planet this was followed by another two novels Perlandra and That Hideous Strength finishing the trilogy in 1945. In 1950 he published his most famous childrens book The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe which was the beginning of Chonicles of Narnia. C.S. Lewis married late in life, His wife Joy, an American divorcee with one young son, died of cancer in 1960. Lewis himself died three years later in 1963 a week before his 65th birthday and the same day that John F Kennedy was assassinated. C. S. Lewis' legacy still lives on through the imagination and visions in his books and writings for young and old alike.