Late birthday Nov 29

 It's the birthday of Irish author C.S. [Clive Staples] Lewis, born in Belfast in 1898. When he was four, his dog Jacksie was hit by a car and killed; the boy declared he was changing his name to "Jacksie," and for a while he wouldn't answer to anything else. For the rest of his life, he was known as "Jack" to his family and close friends.

Raised in the Church of Ireland, he became an atheist in his teens and eventually returned to the church after a series of long theological arguments with his friend and colleague J.R.R. Tolkien. "I gave up Christianity at about 14," he said. "Came back to it when getting on for 30. Not an emotional conversion; almost purely philosophical. I didn't want to. I'm not in the least a religious type. I want to be let alone, to feel I'm my own master; but since the facts seemed to be just the opposite, I had to give in." He wrote Mere Christianity (1952), a classic of Christian apologetics; and The Screwtape Letters (1942), an epistolary novel that consists of letters from a demon to his apprentice nephew, giving him pointers on leading a man astray. He's also the author of the seven-book allegorical fantasy series The Chronicles of Narnia, which he wrote for children. He thought it would be a good way to introduce Christian themes to children without beating them over the head, something that had turned him off as a young man. "An obligation to feel can freeze feelings," he once said.

Thanks Writer's Almanac2013

C. S. Lewis birth anniversary

  Happy birth anniversary to

"....novelist and Christian apologist C.S. Lewis, born Clive Staples Lewis in Belfast, Ireland (1898). He grew up in a big house out in the country. He said: "I am the product of long corridors, empty sunlit rooms, upstairs indoor silences, attics explored in solitude, distant noises of gurgling cisterns and pipes, and the noise of wind under the tiles. Also, of endless books." He was particularly fascinated by Norse myths and old Scandinavian epics.

Lewis became an atheist after his mother died, and his atheism deepened after he fought on the front lines in France during WWI. He studied at Oxford University, and then became a professor there. After he had been teaching for about a year, he went to an Oxford faculty meeting and met a young professor of Anglo-Saxon named J.R.R. Tolkien. Lewis described Tolkien in his diary: "He is a smooth, pale, fluent little chap [...] thinks all literature is written for the amusement of men between 30 and 40 [...] No harm in him: only needs a smack or two." Despite his initial misgivings, Lewis and Tolkien became good friends when Lewis joined Tolkien's newly formed Icelandic Society. Lewis wrote to his best friend from childhood: "You will be able to imagine what a delight this is to me, and how, even in turning over the pages of my Icelandic Dictionary, the mere name of a god or giant catching my eye will sometimes throw me back 15 years into a wild dream of northern skies and Valkyrie music."

In 1929, Lewis converted from atheism to theism (but still not to Christianity). He described how for months he felt God's presence in his room each night, and finally, he gave in. He described himself as "perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England." Two years later, he invited Tolkien and another friend to dinner, and afterward they spent hours walking along the river on the Oxford campus and discussing Christianity and myth. A few days later, Lewis officially converted to Christianity, riding on a motorcycle on the way to the Whipsnade zoo with his brother. He said, "When we set out I did not believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and when we reached the zoo I did."

It was around that time that Lewis and Tolkien began meeting regularly with a group of friends who became known as "The Inklings." The Inklings met for 16 years. Each week they gathered midday in a back room at the Eagle and Child pub (which they called the Bird and Baby) for food, cider, and informal conversation. The serious literary events occurred each Thursday evening in Lewis's apartment, which was not particularly clean. Lewis flicked his cigarette ashes directly on the carpet, and as one member pointed out, it was impossible to tell whether his gray chairs and sofa were gray originally or were just dirty. The Inklings would arrive slowly between 9 and 10:30 p.m., someone would make a pot of strong black tea, and they would take turns reading aloud from whatever they were writing. Over the years, Tolkien read The Lord of the Rings, and Lewis The Screwtape Letters (1942), his book of fictional advice letters from a senior demon, Screwtape, to his nephew Wormwood.

One day Lewis sat down to write a story for his goddaughter, Lucy. He said it "began with a picture of a Faun carrying an umbrella and parcels in a snowy wood. The picture had been in my mind since I was about 16. Then one day when I was about 40, I said to myself: 'Let's try to make a story about it.'" That was The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (1950), which Lewis followed with six sequels, known collectively as The Chronicles of Narnia.

Lewis's other books include Mere Christianity (1952) and Surprised by Joy (1955).

Writer's Almanac 2017

C.S. Lewis

 Happy birth anniversary to

British novelist, scholar, and poet C.S. Lewis, best known for the Chronicles of Narnia series, seven volumes of stories about young children who find entry to another world through an old wardrobe. They meet a magisterial lion named Aslan who asks for their help in battling evil. Aslan says, “I never tell anyone any story except his own.”

Lewis was born Clive Staples Lewis in Belfast, Ireland (1898). His mother died when he was young and he spent much of his time at boarding school, where his headmaster wielded a cane and admonished students to “Think!” Lewis and his brother created a special world called “Boxen,” where animals talked and had exciting adventures. Lewis once said, “I am the product of long corridors, empty sunlit rooms, upstairs indoor silences, attics explored in solitude, distant noises of gurgling cisterns and pipes, and the noise of wind under the tiles.”

Before becoming a scholar of classics at Oxford University, Lewis served as an infantryman in World War I. He was wounded in the back, he said, “oddly enough by a British shell.” He became lifelong friends with writer J.R.R. Tolkien, and they met weekly at Oxford for tea and literary discussion with other writers for 16 years. They called themselves “The Inklings.”

Source: Writer's Almanac Newsletter

I really loved several novels written about his life (wish I could remember the author) from the point of view of a woman he befriended. After he was famous.