November 29: Birthday of C. S. Lewis (1898)
Prayer Idea
Pray for people who are communicating the message of Jesus in creative and faithful ways.
History Note
Clive Staples Lewis was born on November 29, 1898, in Belfast, Ireland (now Northern Ireland). His parents were Albert Lewis, an attorney, and Florence Hamilton Lewis, a college-educated daughter of a minister. He had an older brother, Warren. The Lewis home was filled with books, and the parents encouraged the boys to read widely.
Before Clive was four years old, he announced to his mother that he wanted to be called Jack. He used that name for the rest of his life. Jack and Warren (whom Jack called Warnie) loved playing together. They created an imaginary world called Boxen, filled with talking animals. They wrote stories about the adventures of the animals in Boxen.
Lewis’s mother died in 1908, a loss that devastated her children. Less than a month later, Mr. Lewis sent Jack to join Warnie at boarding school. The school was terrible, and Warnie begged his father to let them leave. Warnie and Jack went to different schools, and during this time, Jack decided to leave the Christian faith of his early childhood.
Jack Lewis began his studies at Oxford University in 1917 but soon joined the army and served at the front during World War I. Longing to be a poet, Jack worked on his poetry every chance he had, including writing in a small notebook in the trenches during the war. In April of 1918, Lewis was wounded in action and returned to England to recover.
After returning to study at Oxford, Lewis accomplished an excellent academic record there. He read books that encouraged him to have faith in God. G. K. Chesterton was one author who influenced Lewis.
In May of 1925, Lewis became a fellow at Magdalen College in Oxford and a tutor in English language and Tudor literature. Lewis held this position for 29 years.
At Oxford Jack became friends with a group that had great professional and spiritual influence on him. The group called themselves the Inklings and met regularly to discuss various topics and to hear each other read portions of books they were writing. For Lewis one of the most influential of the Inklings was J. R. R. Tolkien, a Catholic professor and author at Oxford.
Later in life, Lewis recorded that in 1929, he began to believe in God again. In 1931 he came to faith in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. Lewis said that a long conversation with Tolkien and another of the Inklings, Hugo Dyson, convinced Lewis that the gospel is true.
Lewis published numerous books and articles. He spoke at church services and religious meetings. He also delivered lectures on the radio. During World War II, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) asked Lewis to broadcast messages explaining the basics of the Christian faith. These radio talks were published in 1952 as Mere Christianity.
Magdalene College at Cambridge University offered Lewis a professorship in Medieval and Renaissance English, and he began teaching there in 1955.
Joy Davidman Gresham was an American writer who visited Lewis in England with her two sons. In 1956 they married in a civil ceremony to allow Joy to stay in England as a legal resident. Soon after this, Joy was diagnosed with advanced cancer that was thought to be terminal. On March 21, 1957, Jack and Joy were married in an Anglican ceremony while Joy was a patient in the hospital.
Joy made a remarkable recovery and regained much of her health. She and her sons moved into Lewis’s home, The Kilns. They had a happy married life. They took a trip to Greece and Italy in the spring of 1960, the only time that Lewis left the British Isles except for his service in the Great War. Then Joy’s cancer returned, and she died on July 13, 1960.
Lewis’s health declined after Joy’s death. He died on November 22, 1963, and was buried in the churchyard of Holy Trinity Church in Headington, where he attended.
The writings of C. S. Lewis continue to teach, encourage, challenge, and evangelize readers. He helped people understand the reality of God and the Lordship of Jesus, truths that he once rejected but then believed again with all his heart.
C. S. Lewis Square in Belfast, Northern Ireland, features statues of Aslan and other characters from his Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia. Photo by dotmiller1986 / Shutterstock.com.
Learn More
This virtual tour explores places in Oxford, England, including The Kilns, the home of C. S. Lewis; Holy Trinity Church, where he attended and was buried; and Magdalen College, where he taught.
Find more resources at Homeschool History.
