Happy Birthday C.S. Lewis!

Today is C.S. Lewis’ 108th Birthday! Thanks to Claire for reminding us of this fact! Here’s a little bit of info about the author for you. You can read more about him by clicking on C.S. Lewis on the menu.

Clive Staples Lewis was born in Belfast, Ireland (now in Northern Ireland) on November 29, 1898. His father was Albert James Lewis (1863-1929), a solicitor whose father had come to Ireland from Wales. His mother was Flora Augusta Hamilton Lewis (1862-1908), the daughter of a Church of Ireland priest. He had one older brother, Warren Hamilton Lewis (Warnie). At the age of four, shortly after his dog Jacksie was hit by a car, Lewis announced that his name was now Jacksie. At first he would answer to no other name, but later accepted Jacks which became Jack, the name by which he was known to friends and family for the rest of his life. At six his family moved into Little Lea, the house the elder Mr. Lewis built for Mrs. Lewis, in Strandtown, Northern Ireland.

Having won a scholarship to University College, Oxford in 1916, Lewis enlisted the following year in the British Army as World War I raged on, and was commissioned an officer in the third Battalion, Somerset Light Infantry. Lewis arrived at the front line in the Somme Valley in France on his eighteenth birthday.

C. S. Lewis. (2006, November 28). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 20:12, November 29, 2006, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=C._S._Lewis&oldid=90647679