Lewis, C S

Lewis, C(live) S(taples)

(born Nov. 29, 1898, Belfast, Ire.—died Nov. 22, 1963, Oxford, Oxfordshire, Eng.) Irish-born British scholar and writer. Lewis taught first at Oxford (1925–54) and later at Cambridge (1954–63). An early volume, the critical Allegory of Love (1936) on medieval and Renaissance literature, is often considered his finest scholarly work. He became known in England and the U.S. for several series of BBC radio broadcasts during the war years on the subject of Christianity. Many of his books embrace Christian apologetics; the best known is The Screwtape Letters (1942), a satirical epistolary novel in which an experienced devil instructs his young charge in the art of temptation. Also well known are The Chronicles of Narnia (1950–56), a series of seven children's stories (including The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, 1950) that have become classics of fantasy; and a science-fiction trilogy, known mostly for its first volume, Out of the Silent Planet (1938).