Book Finds by Perry Bramlett

I

I have bought a book titled Ruth Pitter: Homage to A Poet (1969) The introduction is by David Cecil, and the essays in her honor are by Cecil, Kathleen Raine, John Wain, John Betjeman and others. In Wain’s essay (“Poet of Living Form”), he writes: “C. S. Lewis, in his book on sixteenth-century English literature, makes a distinction between the ‘drab’ and the ‘golden’ in poetry… I recently heard a lecture by W. H. Auden in which he took these terms over from Lewis and applied them to modern poetry.” In this same book, in an essay by Arthur Russell (“Faithful to Delight: A Portrait Sketch”), he writes (when during the war years Ruth worked at a factory in Chelsea): “Ruth reached her own nadir after a day on which a man had fallen down a factory lift-shaft: ‘I stopped in the middle of Battersea Bridge one dreadful March night, when it was cold and the wind was howling over the bridge, and it was dark as the pit, and I leaned over the parapet and thought: Like this I cannot go on, I must find somebody or something. Like this I cannot go on.’ The answer came some months afterwards, when she heard the lively religious broadcasts of C. S. Lewis and as she says ‘grappled them to her soul.’ She assembled family and friends to hear him, for simple enjoyment, and she read every word of his that she could find. By hard argument she convinced herself that his Christian message was what she needed: ‘I had to be intellectually satisfied as well as emotionally, because at that time of one’s life one just doesn’t fall into religion with adolescent emotion. But at last I was satisfied at every point that it was the one way for me. It wasn’t the easy road but it was the only possible one.’ That was said some years ago; now she is humbler: ‘I haven’t any arguments; it only seems that love will have it so.'”

II

In Suffolk, VA, I went to an old junk bookshop and found a dirt cheap prize: The Wood: An Outline of Christianity by Sister Penelope! It has a blurb on the back by C. S. Lewis for another book of hers, The Coming Of The Lord: “I am simply delighted with The Coming Of The Lord; delighted, excited, and most grateful — I think it is the best book you have done, and the best theological book I have read by anyone for a long time…” The Wood has a picture of its author and says “Sister Penelope was born in 1890 at Clent in Worcestershire, where her father was Vicar. She was educated first at Worcester, under Miss Ottley, at now what is the Alice Ottley School, then at Oxford. She entered the novitiate of the Anglican Community of St Mary the Virgin at Wantage in Berkshire a few weeks after coming down from Oxford, and was professed there early in 1915. She worked for six years in the Community’s training homes for girls before being put to teach in the schools in Wantage and elsewhere. The idea of The Wood – that is, of a book of that scope and content – first came to her in 1922, but she long hoped that someone else would write it. Ten years later, however, as nobody had done so, and she herself had be invalided out of teaching work, she set about writing it herself. Wishing to keep abreast of modern scholarship, in 1939 she took the Lambeth Diploma in Theology by theses, offering the Hebrew text of the Psalms as her special subject; and the following year she received the Archbishop’s License to teach Theology, which she still holds. She has written a number of other books, all of which in one way or another follow on from The Wood; and she has also published some sixteen translations, including a volume apiece in the Ancient Christian Writers series, Faber’s Classics of the Contemplative Life, and the Cistercian Fathers now being published by the Trappists in America.”

In her “Suggestions for Further Reading” at the back of the book, Sister Penelope recommends (among others) J. B. Phillips’ Ring of Truth and “nearly all of C. S. Lewis’ religious books, especially the chapter entitled “The Weight of Glory” in Transposition and Other Essays, and of his fiction the Space Trilogy and the Narnia stories.”

III

In Arthur C. Clarke’s latest book, Greetings, Carbon-Based Bipeds! Collected Essays 1934-1998, he mentions (in an essay titled “Dunsany, Lord of Fantasy”), “As I take farewell of Lord Dunsany, I am happy to report that our correspondence has recently been located and will soon be published, together with my much more extensive exchange of letters with C. S. Lewis. I have not seen it for decades and fear that some embarrassments await.”

He mentions Lewis and his writings with great admiration several times in the book… In an article titled “Credo”, Clarke writes: “Let me offer an analogy, based on a conversation I once had with C. S. Lewis. We science fiction writers are always picking each other’s brain, and Lewis asked me what the horizon would look like (ignoring atmospheric absorption) on a really enormous planet — one not thousands, but millions, of kilometers in radius.”

And in an essay titled “Aspects of Science Fiction”: “Nothing could be more ridiculous, therefore, than the accusation sometimes made against science fiction that it is merely escapist. That charge can indeed be made against much fantasy — but so what? There are times (this century has provided a more than ample supply) when some form of escape is essential, and any art form that supplies it is not to be despised. And as C. S. Lewis (creator of both superb science fiction and fantasy) once remarked to me: ‘Who are the people most opposed to escapism? Jailors!'”

Who Is Ann Jenkins?

Is this letter an excerpt from Walter Hooper’s forthcoming collection of Lewis letters? Let’s hope not!

Magdalen College, Cambridge
5 March 1961

Dear Ann,

What Aslan meant when he said he had died is, in one sense
plain enough. Read the earlier book in this series called, “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe” and you will find the full story of how he was killed by the White Witch and came to life again. When you have read that, I think you will probably see that there is a deeper meaning behind it. The whole Narnian story is about Christ. That is to say, I ask myself, “Supposing there really was a world like Narnia and supposing it had (like our world) gone wrong and supposing Christ wanted to go into that world and save it (as He did ours) what might have happened? The stories are my answer.

Since Narnia is a world of Talking Beasts, I thought He would become a Talking Beast there as He became a man here. I pictured Him becoming a lion there because (a) the lion is supposed to be the king of beasts; (b) Christ is called the “Lion of Judah” in the Bible; (c) I had been having strange dreams about lions when I began the work. The whole series works out like this:

“The Magician’s Nephew” tells the Creation and how evil entered Narnia. “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe” tells of the Crucifixion and Resurrection. “Prince Caspian” tells the Restoration of the true religion after a corruption. “The Horse and His Boy” tells the calling and conversion of a heathen. “The Voyage of the Dawn Treader” tells of spiritual life (especially in Reepicheep). “The Silver Chair” tells of the continued war against the powers of darkness. “The Last Battle” tells of the coming of the Anti-Christ (The Ape) the end of the world and the last judgement.

All Clear?

Yours,
C. S. Lewis

The name Ann Jenkins seems to echo some of the previous Lewis forgeries. In “Forms of Things Unknown” the protagonist’s name is John Jenkin. In Ed Brown’s manuscript version of “The Man born Blind” the wife’s name is changed from Mary to Anne. And in the bogus opening of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe on the back of page 1 of the Dark Tower manuscript, the name Susan has been changed to Ann: “This book is about four children whose names were Ann, Martin, Rose and Peter.”

Perry Bramlett
Louisville, KY
September 10, 1999

Dear Kathryn,

I just bought C. S. Lewis: The Storyteller by Derick Bingham (Christian Focus Publications in Scotland). In the front there is a letter, from CSL to “Ann Jenkins” (5 March 1961, Magdalen (sic) College, Cambridge), which I couldn’t find in the expanded Letters of C. S. Lewis and Letters To Children…

“Once, a little ten year old girl called Ann Jenkins wrote to Professor C. S. Lewis with a question she had about something he had written. She was delighted to receive a reply. Historically, it is one of C. S. Lewis’ most important letters because it is telling a little girl, in simple language, what he was driving at in his writing of the seven Chronicles of Narnia, Chronicles that millions of children now read all over the world. Here is what he said in his letter…”

On page 178, there is the following acknowledgement: “We take this opportunity to acknowledge the following publishers: Harper Collins U.K. for permission to print the ‘Dear Ann’ letter in all English speaking countries except the U.S.A. Harcourt Brace & Co. U.S.A. for permission to print the ‘Dear Ann’ letter in the United States.” Why Collins and Harcourt instead of Lewis Pte? I suppose this letter is going to appear in Volume One of Walter Hooper’s forthcoming collection of Lewis letters. Unfortunately, I can’t believe that this letter was really written by Lewis; it doesn’t sound anything like his real letters to children in style or sentiment. If a little girl had written to ask about Aslan dying, Lewis would not have wasted her time and his writing “What Aslan meant when he said he had died is, in one sense plain enough.” (In what sense?) He would not have spoiled the suspense of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by telling her in advance that the White Witch kills Aslan and he comes back to life. He would not have spoiled the series by recounting the didactic purpose of each of the books. And he would never have dumped the following “simple language” on a child: the Crucifixion and Resurrection. the calling and conversion of a heathen. spiritual life, war against the powers of darkness. and the coming of the Anti-Christ, the end of the world, and the last judgement.

After this litany Lewis supposedly ended with the brusque question “All Clear?” Clear as mud!

Do you believe Lewis wrote this letter?

The answer to Perry is no.