Annotated Chronological Listing of C S. Lewis’s Books

“What we want is not more little books about Christianity, but more little books by Christians on other subjects — with their Christianity latent.” “Christian Apologetics” in God in the Dock

1. Spirits in Bondage (London: Heinemann, 1919; San Diego: Harcourt,1984). A collection of early poems published under the pseudonym Clive Hamilton.

2. Dymer (London: Dent, 1926; New York: Dutton, New York: Macmillan).One long narrative poem published under the pseudonym Clive Hamilton. It is out of print as a single volume, but was included in the 1969 collection Narrative Poems.

3. The Pilgrim’s Regress (London: Dent, 1933; London: Sheed and Ward; London: Bles; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans). Semi-autobiographical fantasy tracing Lewis’s return to Christianity. It is his book in prose, first foray into Christian apologetics and the seedbed of most of his later writing.

4. The Allegory of Love (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1936; London: Oxford University Press). Outstanding study of medieval literature and the tradition of courtly love.

5. Out of the Silent Planet (Oxford: John Lane, 1938; New York: Macmillan; London: Pan Books). First volume of Lewis’s

[Numbers 6-13 are omitted in original newsletter]

14. The Abolition of Man (London: Oxford University Press, 1943; London: Bles, Macmillan, New York). An attack on false world views and affirmation of true values.

15. Beyond Personality (London: Bles, 1944; New York: Macmillan). The third part of Lewis’s wartime radio series.

16. That Hideous Strength (London: John Lane, 1945; New York: Macmillan).Third of Lewis’s science-fiction trilogy. Published in an abridged version as The Tortured Planet, by Avon Books in 1946.

17. The Great Divorce (London: Bles, 1945; New York: Macmillan). A fantasy visit to hell and heaven. This was one of Lewis’s favorites of his own books.

18. Miracles: A Preliminary Study (London: Bles, 1947; New York: Macmillan; London: Fontana). An explanation and defense of miracles. The Fontana edition includes Lewis’s expansion of chapter 3.

19. Transposition and Other Addresses (London: Bles, 1949; New York:Macmillan; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans). Published in the U.S. as The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses. Originally three sermons and two Christian addresses. Contents: “Transposition,” “The Weight of Glory,” “Membership,” “Learning in War Time,” “The Inner Ring.” The 1980 edition adds four more essays (“Why I Am Not a Pacifist,” “Is Theology Poetry,” “On Forgiveness,” and “A Slip of the Tongue”) and a partially misleading introduction by Walter Hooper.

20. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (London: Bles, 1950; London: Penguin; New York: Macmillan; London: Collins; New York: HarperCollins). The first of the seven-volume Narnian series for children.

21. Prince Caspian (London: Bles, 1951; London: Penguin; New York: Macmillan; London: Collins; New York: HarperCollins). Second of the seven-volume Narnianseries for children.

22. Mere Christianity (London: Bles, 1952; London: Fontana; New York: Macmillan). A volume combining The Case for Christianity, Christian Behavior and Beyond Personality with a new introduction.

23. The Voyage of “The Dawn Treader” (London: Bles, 1952; London:Penguin; New York: Macmillan; London: Collins; New York: HarperCollins).Third of the seven-volume Narnian series for children.

24. The Silver Chair (London: Bles, 1953; London: Penguin; New York:Macmillan; London: Collins; New York: HarperCollins). Fourth of the seven-volume Narnian series for children.

25. The Horse and His Boy (London: Bles, 1954; London: Penguin; New York:Macmillan; London: Collins; New York: HarperCollins). Fifth of the seven-volumeNarnian series for children.

26. English Literature in the Sixteenth Century (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1954). Volume 3 of The Oxford History of English Literature series.

27. The Magician’s Nephew (London: The Bodley Head, 1954; London: Penguin; New York: Macmillan; London: Collins; New York: HarperCollins). Sixth of the seven-volume Narnian series for children.

28. Surprised by Joy (London: Bles, 1955; London: Fontana; New York:Harcourt). Lewis’s spiritual autobiography takes the reader to the point of his conversion.

29. The Last Battle (London: The Bodley Head, 1954; London: Penguin; New York: Macmillan; London: Collins; New York: HarperCollins). Seventh of the seven-volume Narnian series for children.

30. Till We Have Faces (London: Bles, 1956; New York: Harcourt). A difficult but rewarding novel; according to Owen Barfield, Lewis considered it his best work in the sphere of imaginative literature. The Time Reading Plan edition (1966) included a perceptive introduction by T. S. Matthews.

31. Reflections on the Psalms (London: Bles, 1958; London: Fontana; New York; Harcourt). Comments on the book of Psalms.

32. The Four Loves (London: Bles, 1960; London: Fontana; New York: Harcourt). Analysis of the four human loves and divine Love.

33. Studies in Words (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1960). A scholarly study of seven words: nature, sad, wit, free, sense, simple, and conscience.

34. The World’s Last Night and Other Essays (New York: Harcourt, 1960). A collection of seven essays about Christianity and values. Contents: “The Efficacy of Prayer,” “On Obstinacy in Belief,” “Lilies That Fester,” “Screwtape Proposes a Toast,” “Good Work and Good Works,” “Religion and Rocketry,” “The World’s Last Night.”

35. A Grief Observed (London: Faber and Faber, 1961; Greenwich, Connecticut: Seabury; New York: Bantam; New York: Harper & Row). An account of Lewis’s bereavement originally published under the pseudonym N. W. Clerk. The Bantam edition includes an informative afterword by Chad Walsh, and the Harper & Row gift edition includes a warm foreword by Madeleine L’Engle.

36. An Experiment in Criticism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,1961). An exploration into the subject of literary criticism and good reading.

37. They Asked for a Paper (London: Bles, 1962). A dozen literary and Christian addresses that Lewis gave over a twenty-year period. Contents: “De Descriptione Temporum,” “The Literary Impact of the Authorized Version,” “Hamlet: The Prince or the Poem?” “Kipling’s World,” “Sir Walter Scott,” “Lilies That Fester,””Psycho Analysis and Literary Criticism,” “The Inner Ring,” “Is Theology Poetry?” “Transposition,” “On Obstinacy in Belief,” “The Weight of Glory.”

38. Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer (London: Bles, 1964; London: Fontana; New York: Harcourt). Letters about prayer and the Christian life written to a fictitious friend. The first of Lewis’s books to be published after his death.

39. The Discarded Image (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1964). An introduction to medieval and renaissance literature.

40. Poems (London: Bles, 1964; New York: Harcourt). Over a hundred poems written throughout Lewis’s life, edited by Walter Hooper. Many of those that Lewis published during his lifetime were inexplicably altered (for the worse) for this posthumous collection.

41. Screwtape Proposes A Toast and Other Pieces (London: Fontana, 1965). Eight sermons and lectures, all on religious themes. Contents: “Screwtape Proposes a Toast,” “The Inner Ring,” “Is Theology Poetry?””On Obstinacy in Belief,” “Transposition,” “The Weight of Glory,” “Good Work and Good Works,” “A Slip of the Tongue.”

42. Of Other Worlds (London: Bles, 1966; New York: Harcourt). Stories and essays about Story — fiction and fantasy — edited by Walter Hooper. Essays: “On Stories,” “On Three Ways of Writing for Children,” “Sometimes Fairy Stories May Say Best What’s to Be Said,” “On Juvenile Tastes,” “It All Began With a Picture…,” “On Criticism,” “On Science Fiction,” “A Reply to Professor Haldane,” “Unreal Estates”; Stories: “The Shoddy Lands,” “Ministering Angels,” “Forms of Things Unknown,” “After Ten Years.” (Evidence has surfaced that “Forms of Things Unknown” is not by Lewis after all.)

43. Letters of C. S. Lewis (London: Bles, 1966; New York: Harcourt; London: Fount Paperbacks). Private letters from 1915 to 1963, collected and edited by W. H. Lewis. A memoir and pictures included. Knowledgable readers discount the attack upon Warren Lewis in Walter Hooper’s introduction to the 1988 Fount edition.

44. Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1966). Seven previously unpublished studies and seven more that were hard to obtain, edited by Walter Hooper. Contents: “De Audiend is Poetis,” “The Genesis of a Medieval Book,” “Imagination and Thought in the Middle Ages,” “Dante’s Similes,” “Imagery in the Last Eleven Cantos of Dante’s Comedy,” “Dante’s Statius,” “The Morte D’ Arthur,” “Tasso,” “Edmund Spenser,1552-99,” “On Reading The Faine Queene,” “Neoplatonismin the Poetry of Spenser, ” “Spenser’s Cruel Cupid,” “Genius and Genius, ” “A Note on Comus.”

45. Christian Reflections (London: Bles, 1967; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans). A collection of fourteen papers about or relating to Christianity from the last twenty years of Lewis’s life, edited by Walter Hooper. Contents: “Christianity and Culture,” “Christianity and Literature,” “Religion: Reality or Substitute?” “On Ethics,” “De Futilitate,””The Poison of Subjectivism,” “The Funeral of a Great Myth,” “On Church Music,” “Historicism,” “The Psalms,””The Language of Religion,” “Petitionary Prayer: A Problem Without an Answer,” “Modern Theology and Biblical Criticism,” “The Seeing Eye.”

46. Spenser’s Images of Life (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge,1969). Lewis meant to turn his notes from a course he taught on Spenser into a book, but he died before he had the chance. Dr. Alastair Fowler constructed this book from the notes.

47. Letters to an American Lady (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1967; New York: Pyramid; London: Hodder and Stoughton). A collection of personal letters Lewis wrote to a troubled widow in the southern United States, edited by Clyde Kilby.

48. A Mind Awake (London: Bles, 1968; New York: Harcourt). Clyde Kilby’s anthology of brief quotations from the whole spectrum of Lewis’s writing.

49. Selected Literary Essays (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,1969). A collection of twenty-two literary essays, edited and with an introduction by Walter Hooper. Contents: “De Descriptione Temporum,” “The Alliterative Metre,” “What Chaucer Really Did to Il Filostrato,””The Fifteenth-Century Heroic Line,” “Hero and Leander,” “Variation in Shakespeare and Others,” “Hamlet: The Prince or the Poem?” “Donne and Love Poetry in the Seventeenth Century,” “The Literary Impact of the Authorized Version,” “The Vision of John Bunyan,” “Addison,” “Four-Letter Words,” “A Note on Jane Austen,” “Shelley, Dryden, and Mr. Eliot,” “Sir Walter Scott,” “William Morris,” “Kipling’s World,” “Bluspels and Flalanspheres: A Semantic Nightmare,” “High and Low Brows,” “Metre,” “Psycho-Analysis and Literary Criticism,” “The Anthropological Approach.”

50. Narrative Poems (London: Bles, 1969; New York: Harcourt). Four long story poems edited by Walter Hooper. Contents: “Dymer,” “Launcelot,””The Nameless Isle,” “The Queen of Drum.”

51. God in the Dock (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1970; London: Bles). Published in England as Undeceptions. Forty-eight essays and a dozen published letters on theology and ethics not before available to most readers, collected and edited, with an introduction, by Walter Hooper. Contents: “Evil and God,” “Miracles,” “Dogma and the Universe,” “Answers to Questions on Christianity,” “Myth Became Fact,” “Horrid Red Things,” “Religion and Science,” “The Laws of Nature,” “The Grand Miracle,” “Christian Apologetics,” “Work and Prayer,” “Man or Rabbit?” “On the Transmission of Christianity,” “Miserable Offenders,” “The Founding of the Oxford Socratic Club,” “Religion Without Dogma?” “Some Thoughts,” “The Trouble with ‘X’…, ” “What Are We To Make of Jesus Christ?” “The Pains of Animals,” “Is Theism Important?” “Rejoinder to Dr. Pittenger,” “Must Our Image of God Go?” “Dangers of National Repentance,” “Two Ways with the Self,” “Meditation on the Third Commandment,” “On the Reading of Old Books,” “Two Lectures,” “Meditation in a Toolshed,” “Scraps,” “The Decline of Religion,” “Vivisection,” “Modern Translations of the Bible,” “Priestesses in the Church?” “God in the Dock,” “Behind the Scenes,” “Revival or Decay?” “Before We Can Communicate,” “Cross-Examination,” “Bulverism,” “First and Second Things,” “The Sermon and the Lunch,” “The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment,” “Xmas and Christmas,” “What Christmas Means to Me,” “Delinquents in the Snow,” “Is Progress Possible?” “We Have No ‘Right to Happiness.'”

52. Fern-Seed and Elephants (Glasgow: Fontana/Collins, 1975). Eight essays on Christianity edited by Walter Hooper, including one never published before about forgiveness. Contents: “Membership,” “Leaming in War-Time,””On Forgiveness,” “Historicism,” “The World’s Last Night,” “Religion and Rocketry,” ‘The Efficacy of Prayer,””Fern-seed and Elephants.”

53. The Dark Tower (London: Collins, 1977; New York: Harcourt). Four stories and two fragments of novels, edited by Walter Hooper. One of the stories and the title fragment were not previously available. Contents: “The Dark Tower,” “The Man Born Blind,” “The Shoddy Lands,” “Ministering Angels,” “Forms of Things Unknown,” “After Ten Years.” Three of these six items have turned out not to be by Lewis after all: “The Dark Tower,” “The Man Born Blind,” and “Forms of Things Unknown.”

54. The Joyful Christian (New York: Macmillan, 1977). Readings from the work of C. S. Lewis selected and produced by Macmillan editor Henry William Griffin.

55. They Stand Together (London: Collins, 1979; New York: Macmillan). Over three hundred letters, mostly from C. S. Lewis to Arthur Greeves, edited by Walter Hooper. The letters span Lewis’s life from 1914 to 1963. Knowledgeable readers dismiss the attack upon Warren Lewis’s character that comprises most of the ten-page preface.

56. The Visionary Christian (New York: Macmillan, 1981). Readings from the works of C. S. Lewis edited by Chad Walsh.

57. On Stories, and Other Essays on Literature (New York: Harcourt, 1982). Twenty essays, not all available before. “On Stories,” “The Novels of Charles Williams,” “A Tribute to E. R. Eddison,” “On Three Ways of Writing for Children,” “Sometimes Fairy Stories May Say Best What’s To Be Said,” “On Juvenile Tastes,” “It All Began with a Picture,” “On Science Fiction,” “A Reply to Professor Haldane,” “The Hobbit,” “Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings,” “A Panegyric for Dorothy L. Sayers,” “The Mythopoeic Gift of Rider Haggard,” “George Orwell,” “The Death of Words,” “The Parthenon and the Optative,” “Period Criticism,” “Different Tastes in Literature,” “On Criticism,” “Unreal Estates.

58. The Grand Miracle, and Other Selected Essays on Theology and Ethics (New York: Ballantine, 1982). Twenty-six items from God in the Dock. “Miracles,” “Dogma and the Universe,” “Answers to Questions on Christianity,” “Myth Became Fact,” “Horrid Red Things,” “Religion and Science,” “The Laws of Nature,” “The Grand Miracle,””Christian Apologetics,” “Work and Prayer,” “Manor Rabbit?” “Religion without Dogma,” “Some Thoughts,” ” The Trouble with X,” “What Are We To Make of Jesus Christ?” “The Dangers of National Repentance,” “Two Ways with the Self,” On the Reading of Old Books,” “Scraps,” “The Decline of Religion,” “Vivesection,” “Modern Translations of the Bible,” “God in the Dock,” “Cross Examination,” “The Sermon and the Lunch,” “What Christmas Means to Me.”

59. The Business of Heaven (London: Collins, 1984; San Diego: Harcourt). Daily readings edited by Walter Hooper.

60. Boxen: The Imaginary World of the Young C. S. Lewis (London: Collins,1985; San Diego: Harcourt). Bona fide Lewis juvenilia, burdened by questionable additions. (Illustrations for “The King’s Ring” were by an adult, not by five-year-old Lewis, whose one authentic illustration for the play was omitted. “History of Animal Land” has faulty provenance, and the adult essay “Encyclopedia Boxoniana” is evidently not by Lewis.)

61. Letters to Children (New York: Macmillan, 1985; London: Collins). All of C. S. Lewis’s available surviving letters to children, edited by Lyle W. Dorsett and Marjorie Lamp Mead.

62. Present Concerns (London: Collins Fount,1986; San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich). Nineteen essays, one never before published, edited by Walter Hooper. “The Necessity of Chivalry,” “Equality,” “Three Kinds of Men,” “My First School,” “Is English Doomed?” “Democratic Education,” “A Dream,” “Blimpophobia,” “Private Bates,” “Hedonics,” “After Priggery — What?” “Modern Man and His Categories of Thought,” “Talking about Bicycles,” “On Living in the Atomic Age,” “The Empty Universe,” “Prudery and Philology,” “Interim Report,” “Is History Bunk?” “Sex in Literature.” (Parts of “Modern Man and His Categories of Thought” have been questioned.)

63. First and Second Things: Essays on Theology and Ethics (London: Collins Fount, 1985). Seventeen previously published essays on a variety of topics, edited by Walter Hooper. Bulverism,” “First and Second Things,” “On the Reading of Old Books,” “Horrid Red Things,””Work and Prayer,” “Two Lectures,” “Meditation in a Toolshed,” “The Sermon and the Lunch,” “On the Transmission of Christianity,” “The Decline of Religion,” “Vivisection,” “Modern Translations of the Bible,” “Some Thoughts,” “The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment,” “Xmas and Christmas,” “Revival or Decay?” “Before We Can Communicate.”

64. Timeless at Heart: Essays on Theology (London: Collins Fount, 1987). Ten previously published selections, edited by Walter Hooper. “Christian Apologetics,” “Answers to Questions on Christianity,” “Why I Am Not a Pacifist,” “The Pains of Animals,” “The Founding of the Oxford Socratic Club,” “Religion Without Dogma?” “Is Theism Important?” “Rejoinder to Dr. Pittenger,” “Willing Slaves of the Welfare State,” “Letters.”

65. Letters, C. S. Lewis, Don Giovanni Calabria: A Study in Friendship (Ann Arbor, Michigan: Servant Books, 1988). A brief correspondence in Latin between Don Calabria and C. S. Lewis (1947-54), and subsequent Lewis letters to Don Luigi Pedrollo (1954-61), translated into English and edited by Martin Moynihan. This is Lewis’s ongoing response to a form letter from a Roman Catholic priest in Italy who had read Screwtape in Italian. It is not in Lewis’s usual style because of constraints of language and culture. The letters appeared later as Una Gioia Insolita Lettere tra un prete cattolicoe un laico anglicano [A Rare Joy: Letters between a Catholic priest and an Anglican layman] by G. Calabria and C. S. Lewis (Milan: Editoriale Jaca,1995). Introduction and notes by Luciano Squizzato; translation from Latininto Italian by Patrizia Morelli; preface by Walter Hooper.

66. The Essential C. S. Lewis (New York: Macmillan, 1988). This 536-page collection of Lewis’s previously published writing, edited by Lyle Dorsett, includes three complete books and a comprehensive sampling of briefer items.

67. The Quotable Lewis, (Wheaton, Illinois: Tyndale House, 1989). An encyclopedic selection of brief quotations from the published works of C.S. Lewis, chosen by editors Wayne Martindale and Jerry Root .

68. Christian Reunion and Other Essays (London: Collins Fount, 1990). A new essay followed by eleven previously published essays, edited by Walter Hooper. “Christian Reunion,” “Lilies that Fester,” “Evil and Good,” “Dangers of National Repentance,” “Two Ways with the Self,” “Meditation on the Third Commandment,” “Scraps,””Miserable Offenders,” “Cross-Examination,” “Behind the Scenes,” “What Christmas Means to Me,” “Delinquents in the Snow.” Unfortunately, the title essay has faulty provenance and the central forty percent has been judged an editorial interpolation.

69. All My Road Before Me: The Diary of C.S. Lewis 1922-1927 (London:Collins, 1991; Harcourt Brace Jovanovich). Lewis’s off-and-on pre-Christian diary jottings, with a foreword by Owen Barfield; edited by Walter Hooper.

70. Lewis: Readings for Meditation and Reflection (London: Collins Fount,1992; Harper San Francisco). First published in England as Daily Readings with C. S. Lewis. Eighty-two brief previously-published passages, edited by Walter Hooper.

71. The Collected Poems of C.S. Lewis (London: Collins Fount, 1994). A compilation of Spirits in Bondage and Poems , with seventeen additional poems, edited by Walter Hooper. Although the introduction states that this single volume includes all Lewis’s short poems, a few have been left out. The faulty revisions that first appeared in Poems (1964) are not corrected. Most of the penultimate poem, which is one of the longest, is not by Lewis. The belligerant new “Introductory Letter of 1963 by C.S. Lewis” lacks provenance.