The Lewis Legacy Issue 82

Update on the C. S. Lewis Fundraising Foundation

In his July 1999 fundraising letter Stan Mattson reported that he has recently received two foundation grants and several very generous gifts from individuals; but the net financial surplus from Oxbridge ’98 was only $8.80 per person, and it took time away from other fundraising activities. He says that over 800 attended, which means total surplus from tuition was only Read More ›

In the Footsteps of Glass

According to the July/August 1998 issue of Columbia Journalism Review, the Stephen Glass saga may be the biggest hoax in modern journalism. Glass has been described as an unusually affable and likable but insecure person who needs constant affirmation. In 1994 he worked for Heritage Institute’s Policy Review, where he published six articles. He was a bright, prolific young reporter Read More ›

Mysterious Modern Man

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 ›

The Fate of Peter Rabbit

In the April 1999 issue of Mythprint David Bratman reviewed The Case ofPeter Rabbit: Changing Conditions of Literature for Children by Margaret Mackey (Garland, 1998, hc, 208 pp., $55.) Frederick Warne, Potter’s original publisher and copyright owner, is now a tiny imprint of a multimedia conglomorate. Mackey says the re-engraving of Potter’s art for copyright reasons has been poorly done, Read More ›

“Anguish Over Unpaid Bills” What Would Lewis Think?

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 ›

Lamb’s Players Theatre: Till we Have Faces Drama

Till We Have Faces received an overwhelming response as a workshop production at the 1998 C. S. Lewis Centennial Celebration in Cambridge. That encouraged Lamb’s Players to mount it as a full production in its 1999 season, from 13 August to 19 September. The stage adaptation used a cast of 12 and a vivid and physical theatricality to bring the Read More ›

The Lewis Legacy-Issue 82, Autumn 1999 From the Mailbag

When I first read Screwtape Letters, I was studying sociology in graduate school. But something was missing. I knew something was missing, but I didn’t know what it was. Then I read Screwtape, and bingo, here was more understanding of what it means to be human in one slim volume than in all the great sociological tomes I had been Read More ›

The Morphing of Macphee

The fictitious MacPhee varies greatly in three novels attributed to C. S.Lewis. In the first, Perelandra (1943), his name is spelled McPhee and he is mentioned only once: “… a sceptical friend of ours called McPhee was arguing against the Christian doctrine of the resurrection of the human body. I was his victim at the moment, and he was pressing Read More ›

The Kilns Today

In the summer of 1999 a handsome sign was posted in Thornton’s secondhand book shop on Broad Street, Oxford: ROOMS TO LET C.S. Lewis’ Former HomeThe Kilns, HeadingtonTelephone Oxford: 741865 or 767689E-Mail: kilnsemail@aol.comShare this six bedroom fully furnished home with five others.Monthly rent from 250-350Tenancy Period: 1 August, 1999 – 30 June, 2000 Behind the words was a faint background Read More ›

In the Footsteps of Rigoberta

According to the April 1999 issue of World Press Review, the Guatemalan Quice Indian who won a Nobel Peace Prize in 1992 had fabricated the events in her 1983 book I, Rigoberta Menchu: An Indian Woman in Guatemala. Menchu’s coauthor, a Venezuelan anthropologist named Elisabeth Burgos, says she realized by 1990 that much of the story was fabricated. (For example, Read More ›