by James O’Fee Lewis’s fiction is partly biographical. Lewis’s Ransom resembles another philologist, J. R. Tolkien, and the influence of Tolkien on Lewis is well-known. Not so well-known is the debt that Lewis owed to his private tutor, W. T. Kirkpatrick. Kirkpatrick was a freethinker and atheist, although he had once qualified as a Minister in the Irish Presbyterian Church. Read More ›
In chapter 1 of The Dark Tower Orfieu tells MacPhee, “But that we see the future is perfectly certain. Dunne’s book proved that—” After MacPhee roared in response, Orfieu continued, “It’s all very well, MacPhee, but the only thing that enables you to jeer at Dunne is the fact that you have refused to carry out the experiments he suggests….” Read More ›
by James O’Fee Letter to Arthur Greeves, 31 August, 1918: “So you are inclining to the New Ireland school are you? I remember you used rather to laugh at my Irish enthusiasm in the old days when you were still an orthodox Ulsterman.” Lewis was influenced around 1918 by the “New Ireland school”, a circle around Lady Gregory (founder of Read More ›
Lewis used the term Ulsterman only seven times in all his published writings, and five were in positive references to MacPhee, as if to emphasize that MacPhee was an Ulster Scot, not a real Scot. 1 “I am very’ glad to see you, Mrs. Studdock,” he said in what Jane took to be a Scotch accent, though it was really Read More ›
I stand on the windy uplands among the hills of DownWith all the world spread out beneath,meadow and sea and town,And ploughlands on the far-off hillsthat glow with friendly brown. And ever across the rolling landto the far horizon line,Where the blue hills border the misty west,I see the white roads twine,The rare roads and the fair roadsthat call this Read More ›
C. S. Lewis wrote his excellent fragment “The Most Substantial People” in1927, 18 years before he wrote about MacPhee in That Hideous Strength. It is about the Easley family of Belfast. Warren Lewis willed the story to the Wade Center, but Walter Hooper and C S Lewis Pte have blocked its publication. On every side of me were thickset men Read More ›
The essay in Present Concerns titled “Modern Man and His Categories of Thought” is suspicious in several ways. One is its view of women. The writer laments the intellectual and spiritual damage done to men by “The Emancipation of Women.” He says the proper glory of the masculine mind is disinterested concern with truth for truth’s own sake and the Read More ›
MereLewis is a free e-mail listserve devoted to discussion of the life and writings of C. S. Lewis. (Douglas Gresham is a participant.) Subscribers vary widely in age, background, knowledge of Lewis, and location. The following list of subscriber locations is correct except for attributing to the U.S. global services like Hotmail. Country Subscribers Australia 24Austria 2Bermuda 1Brazil 6Canada 18China Read More ›
The provenance of “Modern Man and His Categories of Thought” is as peculiar as its weak sentences and illogical content. Walter Hooper published it in 1986 without one word about where he got it. In two 1991 letters Jerry Daniel, an ordained Disciples minister who was then editor of the Bulletin of the New York C. S. Lewis Society, told Read More ›
Stanley Mattson’s C. S. Lewis Foundation has some truly elegant prospectus packets (videotape and audiotape included) for wealthy prospective donors and has been known to send them by overnight mail. In contrast, his 9 July 1999 mass mailing was apparently designed to appeal to his least affluent and sophisticated donors. It has a relatively modest format, lacking the high-quality paper, Read More ›