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Clive Staples Lewis (1898 - 1963):
Writer


Born at Dundela Avenue in Belfast on 29 November 1898, the second son of Albert J. Lewis and his wife Florence (nee Hamilton). His father was a solicitor and his mother the daughter of the Rector of St Mark's Parish Church where Lewis was baptised on 29 January 1899. His mother was one of the first women graduates of Queen's College (later University) Belfast. In 1905 his family moved to "Little Lea" in Circular Road Belfast.

Lewis was educated briefly at Campbell College Belfast and later at Malvern College in Worcestershire. Following a period of private tuition from W.T. Kirkpatrick (formerly headmaster of Lurgan College) he entered University College, Oxford. During the First World War he interrupted his studies to serve with the Somerset Light Infantry. He graduated with a triple first. From 1925 to 1954 he was a fellow and tutor of Magdalen College, Oxford, before being appointed Professor of Medieval and Renaissance Literature at Cambridge.

His book The Allegory of Love (1936) won the Hawthornden Prize, and he published many other works, including The Discarded Image, The Problem of Pain, and The Screwtape Letters. His autobiography, Surprised by Joy, was published in 1955, and in the following year he married Joy Davidman. They spent their honeymoon at the Old Inn Crawfordsburn. His seven 'Narnia' books which began with The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (1950) are a great favourite with children everywhere. He and his brother Warren presented a stained glass window to St Mark's in memory of their parents.

C.S. Lewis died on 22 November 1963 in Oxford and is buried there.



Born: 29 November 1898
Died: 22 November 1963
Wesley McCann