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.
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