J.R.R. Tolkien

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C.S. Lewis

Lewis & Tolkien, faith & friendship

December 5, 2005 Paul Martin Comments Off on Lewis & Tolkien, faith & friendship

When C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien first met on May 11, 1926 at Oxford University, where Tolkien was a professor of English language and Lewis a professor of English literature, they initially didn’t hit it off. Tolkien didn’t think English literature held much academic validity. Lewis’ Protestant upbringing had taught him never to trust a “Papist”; Tolkien was Catholic. […]

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C.S. Lewis

Shadowlands of Narnia

November 26, 2005 Paul Martin Comments Off on Shadowlands of Narnia

IN ACCOUNTS OF 20TH-CENTURY LITERARY movements and happenings, the 1950s is often ignored. Yet this decade, viewed as a quiet time in English literature, birthed three of the greatest-ever series: Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast trilogy was completed, as was JRR Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. And CS Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia, seven volumes, topped them all. […]

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C.S. Lewis

A Man and His Myths

November 2, 2005 Paul Martin Comments Off on A Man and His Myths

In 1949, the year he finished writing “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe,” C. S. Lewis was leading at least four different lives. His reputation as a Christian apologist had already been launched with several books and a series of BBC radio speeches. He was a charismatic Oxford professor, an expert in Milton and Spenser. […]