The Great Tower of Elfland: The Mythopoeic Worldview of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, G.K. Chesterton, and George MacDonald
by Zachary Rhone
Analyzing Tolkien, Lewis, Chesterton, and MacDonald’s literary, scholarly, and interpersonal texts, The Great Tower of Elfland clarifies the unities of their thinking through five general categories: literature and language, humanism, philosophy of the personal journey, philosophy of history and civilization, and their Christian mythopoeia. After responding to scholarly arguments that diffuse worldviews, this text introduces some of the literary and interpersonal exchanges among the authors to demonstrate their relationships before examining the popular and lesser-known writings of each to clarify their literary and linguistic theoretical orientations.
Rhone analyzes the Renaissance-like Christian humanism of these authors, their belief that humans should care for animals and nature, and their assertion of fallen humanity. Next, he takes readers through Tolkien’s, Lewis’s, Chesterton’s, and MacDonald’s perspectives of the human journey, analyzing literary motifs of pathways in their texts, roads used to demonstrate their perceptions of free will, fate, and the accompanying discipleship of companions along the way. After noting the individual human journey, Rhone articulates the group’s vantages on humanity through civilization and barbarism, myth and science, and even political opinions. Finally, The Great Tower of Elfland recontextualizes the perspectives of MacDonald, Chesterton, Lewis, and Tolkien in light of their Christian mythopoeia, the point on which their unity hinges.
Miracles
by C. S. Lewis
Throughout Miracles, Lewis considers the nature of miracles, past and present, and how we often minimize their presence in our lives.
Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life
by C. S. Lewis
"A young man who wishes to remain a sound Atheist cannot be too careful of his reading. There are traps everywhere . . . God is, if I may say it, very unscrupulous."
This book is not an autobiography. It is not a confession. It is, however, certainly one of the most beautiful and insightful accounts of a person coming to faith. Here, C.S. Lewis takes us from his childhood in Belfast through the loss of his mother, to boarding school and a youthful atheism in England, to the trenches of World War I, and then to Oxford, where he studied, read, and, ultimately, reasoned his way back to God. It is perhaps this aspect of Surprised by Joy that we—believers and nonbelievers—find most compelling and meaningful; Lewis was searching for joy, for an elusive and momentary sensation of glorious yearning, but he found it, and spiritual life, through the use of reason.
In this highly personal, thoughtful, intelligent memoir, Lewis guides us toward joy and toward the surprise that awaits anyone who seeks a life beyond the expected.
"Lewis tempered his logic with a love for beauty, wonder, and magic . . . He speaks to us with all the power and life-changing force of a Plato, a Dante, and a Bunyan."—Christianity Today
"The tension of these final chapters holds the interest like the close of a thriller."—Times Literary Supplement
C. S. (Clive Staples) Lewis (1898–1963), one of the great writers of the twentieth century, also continues to be one of our most influential Christian thinkers. He wrote more than thirty books, both popular and scholarly
Jack: A Life of C. S. Lewis (biography)
by George Sayer and Lyle W. Dorsett
Sayer draws from a variety of sources, including his close friendship with Lewis and the million-word diary of Lewis' brother, to paint a portrait of the man whose friends knew him as Jack.
Offering glimpses into Lewis's extraordinary relationships and experiences, Jack details the great scholar's life at the Kilns; days at Magdalen College; meetings with the Inklings; marriage to Joy Davidman Gresham; and the creative process that produced such world-famous works as the classic Chronicles of Narnia, Mere Christianity, and The Screwtape Letters.
This book is an intimate account of the man who helped---and through his works, continues to help--generations hear and understand the heart of Christianity.
The Space Trilogy
by C. S. Lewis
Lewis’ Space Trilogy, consisting of Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, and That Hideous Strength, is both powerful and complex. Over the course of the series, he engages philosophical, theological, and scientific issues; builds on rich literary traditions; imagines future possibilities (such as transhumanism and space colonization); and more.
C. S. Lewis: A Biography
by Roger Lancelyn Green and Walter Hooper
This is the true story of C.S. Lewis – one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century – whose books for children and adults have become much-loved classics.
Part of the story of C.S. Lewis has been made famous through the film ‘Shadowlands’. Here this fascinating man’s entire life-story is told by those who knew him personally.
C.S. Lewis was born in Belfast in 1898 and was sent to England for a public school education with his elder brother, Warren. Lewis exhibited a genius for imagination and perception from his earliest years. Brought up in a Christian household, Lewis lost his faith in his teenage years but was to regain it, with reluctance, as a fellow at Magdalen College, Oxford. His faith subsequently influenced his writings. He became a vigorous champion of the Christian faith through classics such as Mere Christianity and through his BBC broadcasts.
His Chronicles of Narnia became children’s classics and he was deluged with correspondence from his young readers.
In his latter years he unexpectedly fell deeply in love with a divorced American, Joy Greshem, and married her, only to suffer the devastation of her death a few years later. C.S. Lewis died in 1963 at his home in Oxford.
During his lifetime C.S. Lewis suggested to his friend, Roger Lancelyn Green, who was a fellow English scholar, that he would undertake his biography one day. After Lewis’s death in 1963 Lancelyn Green and Walter Hooper were approached by several of Lewis’s friends, to write the biography. Warren Lewis, brother to Jack, contributed a great deal to the writing. The authors had at their disposal a vast collection of letters and diaries, as well as the recollections of many surviving family members and friends.
Walter Hooper has enhanced the original text with additional material to provide a new, expanded edition which all C.S. Lewis fans will be keen to own.
The Chronicles of Narnia
by C. S. Lewis
This essential, seven-book series develops chronologically through The Magician’s Nephew; The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe; The Horse and his Boy; Prince Caspian; The Voyage of the Dawn Treader; The Silver Chair; and The Last Battle. Here, Lewis offers clear and accessible fantasy adventures that model Christian theology and imagination.
The Great Divorce
by C. S. Lewis
In The Great Divorce, C.S. Lewis again employs his formidable talent for fable and allegory. The writer finds himself in Hell boarding a bus bound for Heaven. The amazing opportunity is that anyone who wants to stay in Heaven, can. This is a starting point for an extraordinary meditation upon good and evil, grace and judgment. Lewis’s revolutionary idea is the discovery that the gates of Hell are locked from the inside. Using his extraordinary descriptive powers, Lewis’s The Great Divorce will change the way we think about good and evil.
Mere Christianity
by C. S. Lewis
In the classic Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis, the most important writer of the 20th century, explores the common ground upon which all of those of Christian faith stand together. Bringing together Lewis’ legendary broadcast talks during World War Two from his three previous books The Case for Christianity, Christian Behavior, and Beyond Personality, Mere Christianity provides an unequaled opportunity for believers and nonbelievers alike to hear this powerful apologetic for the Christian faith.
The Problem of Pain
by C. S. Lewis
In one of his most philosophically heavy texts, Lewis examines how a good God can allow pain and suffering in the world.
The Screwtape Letters
by C. S. Lewis
The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis is a classic masterpiece of religious satire that entertains readers with its sly and ironic portrayal of human life and foibles from the vantage point of Screwtape, a highly placed assistant to "Our Father Below." At once wildly comic, deadly serious, and strikingly original, C.S. Lewis's The Screwtape Letters is the most engaging account of temptation—and triumph over it—ever written.
The Fellowship: The Literary Lives of the Inklings
by Philip and Carol Zaleski
C. S. Lewis is the 20th century's most widely read Christian writer and J.R.R. Tolkien its most beloved mythmaker. For three decades, they and their closest associates formed a literary club known as the Inklings, which met every week in Lewis's Oxford rooms and in nearby pubs. They discussed literature, religion, and ideas; read aloud from works in progress; took philosophical rambles in woods and fields; gave one another companionship and criticism; and, in the process, rewrote the cultural history of modern times.
In The Fellowship, Philip and Carol Zaleski offer the first complete rendering of the Inklings' lives and works. The result is an extraordinary account of the ideas, affections and vexations that drove the group's most significant members. C. S. Lewis accepts Jesus Christ while riding in the sidecar of his brother's motorcycle, maps the medieval and Renaissance mind, becomes a world-famous evangelist and moral satirist, and creates new forms of religiously attuned fiction while wrestling with personal crises. J.R.R. Tolkien transmutes an invented mythology into gripping story in The Lord of the Rings, while conducting groundbreaking Old English scholarship and elucidating, for family and friends, the Catholic teachings at the heart of his vision. Owen Barfield, a philosopher for whom language is the key to all mysteries, becomes Lewis's favorite sparring partner, and, for a time, Saul Bellow's chosen guru. And Charles Williams, poet, author of "supernatural shockers," and strange acolyte of romantic love, turns his everyday life into a mystical pageant.
Romantics who scorned rebellion, fantasists who prized reality, wartime writers who believed in hope, Christians with cosmic reach, the Inklings sought to revitalize literature and faith in the twentieth century's darkest years-and did so in dazzling style.
Till We Have Faces
by C. S. Lewis
Ask a CS Lewis scholar for their favorite work of Lewis’, and they will likely respond with Perelandra from the Space Trilogy or Till We Have Faces. Both texts model mythopoeia (“myth-making”) from early myths. Whereas Perelandra draws on the Genesis story of the Fall, Till We Have Faces reimagines the myth of Cupid and Psyche. In doing so, Lewis offers his most challenging and complex read with many thematic strands, including love, the meaning of life, aesthetics, and longing.
The Collected Poems of C. S. Lewis: A Critical Edition
by ed by Don W. King
Beginning with his earliest lyric poems from 1907, The Collected Poems of C. S. Lewis follows Lewis’s efforts to write long, narrative poems, which were particularly influenced by Norse mythology. His outburst of lyric poetry as a young man in the trenches during World War I culminates in his first published work, Spirits in Bondage (1919), followed by his most ambitious narrative poem, Dymer (1926). Both volumes afford unique insights into Lewis the atheist.
After his conversion to Christianity in 1930, Lewis wrote a collection of sixteen religious lyrics that he included in The Pilgrim’s Regress (1933); as a group, these are considered among his best poems. Until his death in 1963, Lewis continued writing and publishing poetry, often appearing in journals and magazines under his pseudonym N. W., shorthand for the Anglo-Saxon nat whilk, “[I know] not whom.” As a whole, these latter poems are either occasional verses, burlesques, and erudite satires or they are contemplative poems musing upon the human condition and its pain, joy, suffering, pride, love, doubt, and faith.
The Collected Poems of C. S. Lewis demonstrates a dedicated, determined, and passionate poet at work and illustrates the degree and depth to which poetry shaped Lewis’s literary, intellectual, emotional, and spiritual life.
