C.S. Lewis (1898-1963)

Clive Staples "Jack" Lewis, son of James Lewis and Florence "Flora" Augusta Hamilton, was born in Belfast, Ireland on 29 Nov 1898. In 1956 he married Joy Davidman Gresham, who died 1960. He never remarried.

Lewis is known for his fictional works "The Screwtape Letters," "The Chronicles of Narnia" and "The Space Trilogy." The "Space Trilogy" (also called the "Cosmic Trilogy" or "Ransom Trilogy") dealt with what Lewis saw as the dehumanizing trends in contemporary science fiction:

• The first book, "Out of the Silent Planet," was apparently written following a conversation with his friend JRR Tolkien about these trends. Lewis agreed to write a "space travel" story and Tolkien a "time travel" one, but Tolkien never completed "The Lost Road", linking his Middle-earth to the modern world. Lewis's main character Elwin Ransom is based in part on Tolkien, a fact Tolkien alludes to in his letters. 
• The second novel, "Perelandra," depicts a new Garden of Eden on the planet Venus, a new Adam and Eve and a new "serpent figure" to tempt them. The story can be seen as an account of what could have happened if the terrestrial Eve had resisted the serpent's temptation and avoided the Fall of Man. 
• The third novel, "That Hideous Strength," develops the theme of nihilistic science threatening traditional human values, embodied in Arthurian legend.

Walter Hooper, Lewis's literary executor, discovered a fragment of another science-fiction novel by Lewis, "The Dark Tower." Ransom appears in the story but it is not clear whether the book was intended as part of the same series of novels. The manuscript was eventually published in 1977, though Lewis scholar Kathryn Lindskoog doubts its authenticity.

Lewis died in Oxford, England on 22 Nov 1963. Media coverage of his death was almost completely overshadowed by news of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, which occurred on the same day, as did the death of Aldous Huxley, author of "Brave New World." This coincidence was the inspiration for Peter Kreeft's book "Between Heaven and Hell: A Dialog Somewhere Beyond Death with John F. Kennedy, C. S. Lewis, & Aldous Huxley."