Giant New C. S. Lewis Anthology

C. S. Lewis: Essay Collection & Other Short Pieces

HarperCollins, edited by Leslie Walmsley,
894 pp, 135 selections, 25, about $39.25 U.S.

The cover of this book shows the famous photo of C. S. Lewis with his cigarette erased. In her introduction Walmsley writes “For all this background information, as for so much else to do with the works of C. S. Lewis, I am greatly indebted to Walter Hooper, whose C. S. Lewis: Companion & Guide gives full details of all Lewis’s writings, including of course his essays. “Four of her 135 election are definitely Lewis forgeries.”

Her introduction to “Christian Reunion, An Anglican Speaks to Roman Catholics” says “Written at the invitation of Roman Catholic friends, this essay was discovered — on the back of a few sheets of broadcasts made in 1944 — after Lewis’s death in 1963, and was published for the first time in Christian Reunion (1990).”

Her introduction to “The Man Born Blind” says “According to Owen Barfield, this short story was written during the late 1920s when he and Lewis were deep in the ‘Great War’ debate over Appearance and Reality (this is referred to in Surprised By Joy, pp. 166ff). It was found in a notebook by Lewis’s brother, Warren, and was first published in The Dark Tower and Other Stories (1977). The current edition (1998) contains fuller details in Walter Hooper’s Preface (pp. ix-xi).”

Her introduction to The Dark Tower says “This short story consists of 62 sheets of ruled foolscap paper, numbered 1 to 64. Sheets 11 and 49 are missing, and the story breaks off in mid-sentence on p. 64. It is not known whether Lewis ever finished it. It was first published by William Collins in 1977. Walter Hooper has written a full note on it in The Dark Tower and Other Stories (1998), pp. 82-88.”

Her introduction to “Forms of Things Unknown” says “This was discovered in the papers which Warren Lewis gave to Walter Hooper, and was not published in Lewis’s lifetime, possibly because he thought that the references to classical mythology would be beyond most readers. It was ultimately published in Of Other Worlds: Essays and Stories (1966), and then in The Dark Tower and Other Stories (1998).”

Selections in this anthology are divided into eleven categories: 1-The Search for God, 2-Aspects of Faith, 3-The Christian in the World, 4-The Church, 5-English and Literature, 6-The Art of Writing and the Gifts of Writers, 7-Education and History, 8-Philosophical Thoughts, 9-Some Everyday Thoughts, 10-Letters, and 11-Short Stories.