In September’s American Spectator. Tom Bethell’s two-page article”Controversy in the Shadowlands: Questioning the authorshp of some C. S. Lewis works” quotes John Bremer (from the C. S. Lewis Readers’ Encyclopedia): “[The Dark Tower] gives the impression of having been written by an undergraduate fascinated with homosexuality.” To be even-handed, Bethell praises Walter Hooper’s C. S. Lewis: Companion and Guide “a Read More ›
At a breakout session, Doug Gresham talked glowingly of Walter Hooper, saying that he defers to Walter’s “definitive” knowledge of the works of C. S. Lewis. Although Gresham downplayed how well Hooper knew Lewis (“Walter didn’t know Jack the man at all”), he backpedaled questions about whether Hooper exaggerated his relationship with Lewis. Gresham said that he isn’t sure that Read More ›
The Special Centenary Edition of The Dark Tower and Other Stories(HarperCollins, 1998) announces on its back cover that “The Dark Tower … is a draft of a possible fourth volume to follow Lewis’s acclaimed adult science fiction trilogy.” Those who read that statement might be tempted to think that here is another case of sloppy writing by a publisher’s marketing Read More ›
Doug Gresham read a letter from Lewis to a Mrs. Baxter from Kentucky in 1947. In the letter, Lewis said he tried writing a children’s story, but it was universally regarded as so bad that he destroyed it.
Conference-goers touring the Kilns were treated to a picture of the Shroud of Turin in Lewis’s old bedroom. The picture apparently was the one given to Lewis by Sister Penelope. Where did the picture come from? Walter Hooper. Hooper also indicates he has a Norman crucifix that hung over Lewis’s bed, but he hasn’t given that to the Kilns. Also Read More ›
At one of the concluding banquets at the Oxbridge conference, Doug Gresham read from a poem that he said he wrote around 25 years ago about the death of C. S. Lewis. The interesting thing is that the poem includes what sounds like a death scene between Gresham and Lewis, as if Gresham was at Lewis’s bedside when he died. Read More ›
At Oxbridge Doug Gresham said he was not a Christian when he wrote the book Lenten Lands at the end of the 1980s. He dates his conversion to about “eight years ago” when his world came crashing down after he became involved in a “semi-sexual relationship” with another woman. When asked whether he was still an Anglican, Gresham said no Read More ›
In August 1998 James Prothero, editor of The Lamp-Post, wrote to certainother authors of entries in the C. S. Lewis Reader’s Encyclopedia. He called the book shockingly “Lindskoogian,” and said Walter Hooper had warned him that Lindskoog can now imply to the innocent public that all the contributors agree with her opinions. Therefore Prothero decided to write a formal disclaimer. Read More ›
Mattson’s on-again, off-again plans to found a college in the United States are on again. He enthusiastically touted this perennial fundraising project to his audience at Oxbridge ’98.
Walter Hooper says that he is now working on Volume I of Collected (and Selected) Letters of C. S. Lewis. It will include letters from 1905 to 1931 and may be published in 1999. Volume II will include letters from about 1932 to 1945 and may be published in the year 2000. Volume III will contain those from 1946 to Read More ›