Although his novels for adults and children continue to be widely read and admired, C. S. Lewis is also well known as a religious essayist and literary scholar-critic. His religious writings of three decades include autobiography (The Pilgrim’s Regress, 1933; Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life, 1955; A Grief Observed, 1961) and essays in varying lengths and forms. Some of his essays include The Personal Heresy (1939; with E. M. W. Tillyard), Rehabilitations (1939), The Problem of Pain (1940), The Abolition of Man (1943), Miracles: A Preliminary Study (1947), Mere Christianity (1952), Reflections on the Psalms (1958), and The Four Loves (1960). His works of a religious nature that were published after Lewis’s death include Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer (1964), Letters to an American Lady (1967), God in the Dock (1970), and The Joyful Christian: 127 Readings from C. S. Lewis (1977).

Lewis’s criticism, focused primarily on medieval and Renaissance studies, includes The Allegory of Love (1936), A Preface to “Paradise Lost” (1942), English Literature in the Sixteenth Century, Excluding Drama (1954), Studies in Words (1960), An Experiment in Criticism (1961), and The Discarded Image (1964). Several volumes of criticism appeared posthumously, including Spenser’s Images of Life (1967), Selected Literary Essays (1969), and Present Concerns (1986).

Less widely known are Lewis’s early volumes of poetry, Spirits in Bondage (1919), a collection of lyrics; and Dymer (1926), a narrative. The posthumous The Dark Tower, and Other Stories (1977) includes an unpublished fragment of a novel. This collection and one other, Of Other Worlds: Essays and Stories (1966), contain the only extant fictional pieces not printed during Lewis’s lifetime. The Wade Collection at Wheaton College (Illinois) and the Bodleian Library, Oxford, hold many volumes of Lewis papers, including eleven volumes of Lewis family letters written from 1850 to 1930.

C. S. Lewis’s achievements as a novelist are hard to separate from his role as a Christian apologist and from his impeccable literary scholarship. Many of Lewis’s readers believe that his greatness lies in the unusually wide scope of his work: He wrote so much so well in so many forms. His Mere Christianity, for example, is a superb primer on Christian ideas, and The Four Loves and A Grief Observed are powerful explorations of the endurance of love despite doubt and deep pain. The Screwtape Letters, Lewis’s most popular book in the United States, continues to enthrall new readers with its witty yet serious study of the war between good and evil in the modern world. Among his critical writings, The Allegory of Love remains a classic study of medieval literature and society, while The Discarded Image is one of the very best discussions of the contrast between the medieval worldview and the modern mind.

The popularity of Lewis’s novels for adults (Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, and That Hideous Strength—known as the Space Trilogy—and Till We Have Faces) owes more perhaps to their treatment of themes also developed in his nonfiction than to their literary excellence, although the Space Trilogy is widely read among devotees of fantasy and science fiction who have little acquaintance with Lewis’s other works. The extraordinary appeal of Lewis’s fiction for children, the Narnia books, is undisputed. Each year, these seven novels gain thousands of new readers of all ages and are, for many, the introduction to Lewis that inspires them to delve into his other works. Indeed, had Lewis never published another word, the Narnia books would have ensured his reputation with both critics and the public.

Compare C. S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia with J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books as children’s literature that has attracted wide adult readership.

Who were the Inklings, and how did they contribute to Lewis’s literary career?

What explanation can be offered for the popularity of Lewis’s religious works with readers who often share little of his religious enthusiasm?

In what ways do Lewis’s science-fiction novels differ most strikingly from science fiction in general?

Characterize the humor in The Screwtape Letters.

In what ways has Lewis’s command of medieval literature contributed to the success of his fiction?