The C. S. Lewis Business: An Investor’s Dream

According to new research, the Dutch holding company that owns the Lewis literary estate (C. S. Lewis Pte Ltd) is named UITGEVERSMAATSCHAPPIJ EKSTER B.V. (The company’s president is Rudolph Sieber of Holland.) The director of C. S. Lewis Pte Ltd is Melvin Adams of Greystones, Ireland; and according to the Singapore Department of Statistics its official address is 2 Handy Road #07-02, Cathay Building, Singapore.

In 1992 C. S. Lewis Pte Ltd copyrighted the trademark “The Chronicles of Narnia” for a “series of fiction books.” A series for little children is now in production. In June 1997 the estate filed three pending trademarks on the expression “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” for three lines of products: 1. greeting cards, calendars and the like, 2. various games, including computer games, 3. clothing.

The cost for each filing is $245. After that it is just a matter of remembering renewal dates, filling out the forms and paying fees. One must renew each product pending application for $100 every 6 months. Perhaps by now Lewis Pte has filed for trademarks on various Narnian titles and terms.

A set of “Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” paperdolls is already on the market, and a 1999 calendar is in production. There is reportedly a major “Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” film in production, and the usual product tie-ins seem inevitable. Can a children’s clothing line be far behind?

Strange as it seems, C. S. Lewis Pte Ltd claims half ownership of anything written by Lewis’s father, Albert, who died in 1929. (Warren Lewis left the Lewis Family Papers to the Wade Center.) Fortunately, C. S. Lewis Pte Ltd does not also claim copyright on the Lewis stained glass window in St. Mark’s.