C.S. Lewis
Clive Staples Lewis was a highly regarded scholar and professor, a significant writer and broadcaster of Christian beliefs, but it is his novels for children that have best popularized his legacy. Born in 1898 in Belfast, the first book he published was a volume of poetry, Spirits in Bondage, in 1919. After his second book of poetry, Dymer, still did not make much of an impact, Lewis turned his attention to scholarly and religious works. C.S. Lewis became a professor of literature at Oxford and then Cambridge. He converted to Christianity at the age of thirty-three: his book, The Pilgrim’s Regress (1933), details a life changed by faith. The later books that most directly examine his Christian theology include The Problem of Pain, on the role of hell in an ordered universe, and The Screwtape Letters, about the correspondence between two devils trying to snatch a lost soul away from belief. Three years later, he solidified his reputation as a scholar with The Allegory of Love, about the use of allegories in medieval literature. These two interests - allegories and Christianity - came together in his seven-volume series, The Chronicles of Narnia, published between 1950 and 1956. In 1936, he published Out of the Silent Planet, a science-fiction story with a central character modeled on his close friend and fellow professor J.R.R. Tolkien. However, it was the series that began with The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe that captivated children and adults alike, with the magical world of Narnia, and the majestic figure of Aslan, the lion. C.S. Lewis died in 1963.
