The Lewis Legacy-Issue 86, Autumn 2000
Alternative Lists
The C.S. Lewis Foundation for Truth in Publishing
September 1, 2000
by Perry Bramlett
In 1962 The Christian Century asked C. S. Lewis "What books did most to
shape your vocational attitude and your philosophy of life?" His answer was
this famous list:
1) Phantastes by George MacDonald
2) The Everlasting Man by G. K. Chesterton
3) The Aeneid by Virgil
4) The Temple by George Herbert
5) The Prelude by William Wordsworth
6) The Idea of the Holy by Rudolf Otto
7) The Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius
8) The Life of Samuel Johnson by James Boswell
9) Descent Into Hell by Charles Williams
10) Theism and Humanism by A. J. Balfour
Below is a second "top ten" list, books which greatly influenced Lewis and
informed his thinking. Perhaps some of these should have been in the top
ten:
1) The Divine Comedy by Dante
2) Voyage to Arcturus by David Lindsay
3) Space, Time, and Deity by Samuel Alexander
4) The Fairie Queene by Edmund Spenser
5) Paradise Lost by John Milton
6) The Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan
7) The Golden Bough by James Frazer
8) I and Thou by Martin Buber
9) Symbolism and Belief by Edwyn Bevan
10) The Man Born to be King by Dorothy L. Sayers
For more lists by Perry Bramlett, turn to pages 14-15.
