Barbara Parsons Linville holds a degree from the University of Denver. She is a published freelance writer, conducts annual trips to England with her husband, Delbert, and occasionally lectures on various topics concerning C. S. Lewis and the Inklings. See her article on pp. 12-13. I began reading Lewis back in the mid-70’s. After a slow start (I had almost Read More ›
There’s a 1 June 1951 reference in Brothers and Friends to Warren visiting Gervase Mathew at Blackfriars in Oxford, admiring the chapel but not knowing that it was Dominican. He thought it was Benedictine. If Mathew had been in the Inklings since 1939 or 1940, as Hooper indicates in The Dark Tower, wouldn’t you think Warren would have realised which Read More ›
Walter Hooper’s first known foray into Screwtape territory apparently took place during his 1965-1967 tenure as college chaplain at Wadham. He wrote a Screwtape letter and published it under the title “Hell and Immortality” in an undated periodical called Breakthrough. (A copy exists in the Wade Center.) It is approximately 2,000 words long and aimed at male college students. In Read More ›
by Barbara Parsons Linville [First published in Inklings, Volume 2, Issue 2] I closed the book and for a moment felt the shock of leaving the world I had lately inhabited to return to this one. A strange storm had tossed my thoughts-whirling, scouring, casting them about me. It was like finding all one’s familiar belongings scattered over the countryside Read More ›
Although she was over 80 years old and in a wheelchair, in 1997 this Lewisian finally went to England. By Loring Ellis In June I had the good fortune to be a part of a C. S. Lewis Literary Study Tour. Arriving at Gatwick airport we were met by private coach and guide. I knew we would have people who Read More ›
Part One (leaked by Larry Repass) My Dear Larvalog, You ARE full of surprises! First, you pulled that stunt at the Super-D Store last year, and now you have the gall to write to your “loving uncle” for advice! Well, don’t think for a minute that I would be swayed by your flowery appeal to a possible correspondence similar to Read More ›
Imagine the surprise of Perry Bramlett when he picked up a first edition copy of Poems by C. S. Lewis (1964) in a used book store and found that it was autographed by Walter Hooper. This was Hooper’s very first publication, his first foray into C. S. Lewis studies, and his first revelation of alternative versions of works that C. Read More ›
In his evocative 4-page 1997 fundraising letter, Douglas Gresham claimed that Stanley Mattson’s C. S. Lewis Foundation had already completed 88% of the work needed to restore the Kilns to its original 1930s condition. (Not 87% or 89%, but exactly 88%.) “Would you, therefore, consider making a gift in any amount to help the C. S. Lewis Foundation attain their Read More ›
Doug Gresham’s 1997 fundraising letter began, “Four miles from the towering spires of Oxford lies a modest brick home. A single glance would lead one to believe that the resident family had decided to restore the 72-year-old house. They would be right about the restoration, but the family…, well, that is a bit more complex. “Within the walls of this Read More ›
The vagaries of copyright law can be not only surprising, but amazing. In July 1997 London’s Observer reported that according to some lawyers, the River Kwai in Thailand does not exist. This claim infuriates surviving World War Two prisoners of the Japanese. In 1942 and 1943 Allied prisoners were forced to build a 250-mile railway to Burma for their captors, Read More ›