A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission or a combination of fission and fusion. Both reactions release vast quantities of energy from relatively small amounts of matter. The first fission ("atomic") bomb test released the same amount of energy as approximately 20,000 tons of TNT. The first thermonuclear ("hydrogen") bomb test released the same amount of energy as approximately 10,000,000 tons of TNT.

A modern thermonuclear weapon weighing little more than can produce an explosive force comparable to the detonation of more than 1.2 million tons (1.1 million metric tons) of TNT. Thus, even a small nuclear device no larger than traditional bombs can devastate an entire city by blast, fire and radiation. Nuclear weapons are considered weapons of mass destruction, and their use and control has been a major focus of international relations policy since their debut.

Only two nuclear weapons have been used in the course of warfare, both by the United States near the end of World War II. On 6 August 1945, a uranium gun-type device code-named "Little Boy" was detonated over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Three days later, on 9 August, a plutonium implosion-type device code-named "Fat Man" was exploded over Nagasaki, Japan. These two bombings resulted in the deaths of approximately 200,000 Japanese people—mostly civilians—from acute injuries sustained from the explosions. The role of the bombings in Japan's surrender, and their ethical status, remain the subject of scholarly and popular debate.

Since the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, nuclear weapons have been detonated on over two thousand occasions for testing purposes and demonstrations. Only a few nations possess such weapons or are suspected of seeking them. The only countries known to have detonated nuclear weapons—and that acknowledge possessing such weapons—are (chronologically by date of first test) the United States, the Soviet Union (succeeded as a nuclear power by Russia), the United Kingdom, France, the People's Republic of China, India, Pakistan, and North Korea. In addition, Israel is also widely believed to possess nuclear weapons, though it does not acknowledge having them. One state, South Africa, has admitted to having previous fabricated nuclear weapons in the past, but has since disassembled their arsenal and submitted to international safeguards.

Types

There are two basic types of nuclear weapons: those which derive the majority of their energy from nuclear fission reactions alone, and those which use fission reactions to begin nuclear fusion reactions that produce a large amount of the total energy output.

Fission weapons

All existing nuclear weapons derive some of their explosive energy from nuclear fission reactions. Weapons whose explosive output is exclusively from fission reactions are commonly referred to as atomic bombs or atom bombs (abbreviated as A-bombs). This has long been noted as something of a misnomer, however, as their energy comes specifically from the nucleus of the atom.

In fission weapons, a mass of fissile material (enriched uranium or plutonium) is assembled into a supercritical mass—the amount of material needed to start an exponentially growing nuclear chain reaction—either by shooting one piece of sub-critical material into another (the "gun" method) or by compressing a sub-critical sphere of material using chemical explosives to many times its original density (the "implosion" method). The latter approach is considered more sophisticated than the former and only the latter approach can be used if the fissile material is plutonium.

A major challenge in all nuclear weapon designs is to ensure that a significant fraction of the fuel is consumed before the weapon destroys itself. The amount of energy released by fission bombs can range from the equivalent of less than a ton of TNT upwards of 500,000 tons (500 kilotons) of TNT.

Fusion weapons

The other basic type of nuclear weapon produces a large amount of its energy through nuclear fusion reactions. Such fusion weapons are generally referred to as thermonuclear weapons or more colloquially as hydrogen bombs (abbreviated as H-bombs), as they rely on fusion reactions between isotopes of hydrogen (deuterium and tritium). However, all such weapons derive a significant portion, and sometimes a majority, of their energy from fission. This is because a fission weapon is required as a "trigger" for the fusion reactions, and the fusion reactions can themselves trigger additional fission reactions.

Only six countries—United States, Russia, United Kingdom, People's Republic of China, France and India—have conducted thermonuclear weapon tests. (Whether India has detonated a "true", multi-staged thermonuclear weapon is controversial.) All thermonuclear weapons are considered to be much more difficult to successfully design and execute than primitive fission weapons.

Thermonuclear bombs work by using the energy of a fission bomb to compress and heat fusion fuel. In the Teller-Ulam design, which accounts for all multi-megaton yield hydrogen bombs, this is accomplished by placing a fission bomb and fusion fuel (tritium, deuterium, or lithium deuteride) in proximity within a special, radiation-reflecting container. When the fission bomb is detonated, gamma and X-rays emitted first compress the fusion fuel, then heat it to thermonuclear temperatures. The ensuing fusion reaction creates enormous numbers of high-speed neutrons, which can then induce fission in materials not normally prone to it, such as depleted uranium. Each of these components is known as a "stage", with the fission bomb as the "primary" and the fusion capsule as the "secondary". In large hydrogen bombs, about half of the yield, and much of the resulting nuclear fallout, comes from the final fissioning of depleted uranium.

By chaining together numerous stages with increasing amounts of fusion fuel, thermonuclear weapons can be made to an almost arbitrary yield; the largest ever detonated (the Tsar Bomba of the USSR) released an energy equivalent of over 50 million tons (50 megatons) of TNT. Most thermonuclear weapons are considerably smaller than this, due to practical constraints arising from the space and weight requirements of missile warheads.

Other types

There are other types of nuclear weapons as well. For example, a boosted fission weapon is a fission bomb which increases its explosive yield through a small amount of fusion reactions, but it is not a fusion bomb. In the boosted bomb, the neutrons produced by the fusion reactions serve primarily to increase the efficiency of the fission bomb.

Some weapons are designed for special purposes; a neutron bomb is a thermonuclear weapon that yields a relatively small explosion but a relatively large amount of neutron radiation; such a device could theoretically be used to cause massive casualties while leaving infrastructure mostly intact and creating a minimal amount of fallout. The detonation of any nuclear weapon is accompanied by a blast of neutron radiation. Surrounding a nuclear weapon with suitable materials (such as cobalt or gold) creates a weapon known as a salted bomb. This device can produce exceptionally large quantities of radioactive contamination.

Most variation in nuclear weapon design is for the purpose of achieving different yields for different situations, and in manipulating design elements to attempt to minimize weapon size.

Weapons delivery

Nuclear weapons delivery—the technology and systems used to bring a nuclear weapon to its target—is an important aspect of nuclear weapons relating both to nuclear weapon design and nuclear strategy. Additionally, development and maintenance of delivery options is among the most resource-intensive aspects of a nuclear weapons program: according to one estimate, deployment costs accounted for 57% of the total financial resources spent by the United States in relation to nuclear weapons since 1940.

Historically the first method of delivery, and the method used in the two nuclear weapons actually used in warfare, was as a gravity bomb, dropped from bomber aircraft. This method is usually the first developed by countries as it does not place many restrictions on the size of the weapon and ''weapon miniaturization'' is something which requires considerable weapons design knowledge. It does, however, limit the range of attack, the response time to an impending attack, and the number of weapons which can be fielded at any given time.

With the advent of miniaturization, nuclear bombs can be delivered by both strategic bombers and tactical fighter-bombers, allowing an air force to use its current fleet with little or no modification. This method may still be considered the primary means of nuclear weapons delivery; the majority of U.S. nuclear warheads, for example, are free-fall gravity bombs, namely the B61.

More preferable from a strategic point of view is a nuclear weapon mounted onto a missile, which can use a ballistic trajectory to deliver the warhead over the horizon. While even short range missiles allow for a faster and less vulnerable attack, the development of long-range intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) has given some nations the ability to plausibly deliver missiles anywhere on the globe with a high likelihood of success.

More advanced systems, such as multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles (MIRVs), allow multiple warheads to be launched at different targets from one missile, reducing the chance of a successful missile defense. Today, missiles are most common among systems designed for delivery of nuclear weapons. Making a warhead small enough to fit onto a missile, though, can be a difficult task.

Tactical weapons have involved the most variety of delivery types, including not only gravity bombs and missiles but also artillery shells, land mines, and nuclear depth charges and torpedoes for anti-submarine warfare. An atomic mortar was also tested at one time by the United States. Small, two-man portable tactical weapons (somewhat misleadingly referred to as suitcase bombs), such as the Special Atomic Demolition Munition, have been developed, although the difficulty of combining sufficient yield with portability limits their military utility.

Nuclear strategy

Nuclear warfare strategy is a set of policies that deal with preventing or fighting a nuclear war. The policy of trying to prevent an attack by a nuclear weapon from another country by threatening nuclear retaliation is known as the strategy of nuclear deterrence. The goal in deterrence is to always maintain a second strike capability (the ability of a country to respond to a nuclear attack with one of its own) and potentially to strive for first strike status (the ability to completely destroy an enemy's nuclear forces before they could retaliate). During the Cold War, policy and military theorists in nuclear-enabled countries worked out models of what sorts of policies could prevent one from ever being attacked by a nuclear weapon.

Different forms of nuclear weapons delivery (see above) allow for different types of nuclear strategies. The goals of any strategy are generally to make it difficult for an enemy to launch a pre-emptive strike against the weapon system and difficult to defend against the delivery of the weapon during a potential conflict. Sometimes this has meant keeping the weapon locations hidden, such as deploying them on submarines or rail cars whose locations are very hard for an enemy to track and other times this means protecting them by burying them in hardened bunkers.

Other components of nuclear strategies have included using missile defense (to destroy the missiles before they land) or implementation of civil defense measures (using early-warning systems to evacuate citizens to safe areas before an attack).

Note that weapons which are designed to threaten large populations or to generally deter attacks are known as strategic weapons. Weapons which are designed to actually be used on a battlefield in military situations are known as tactical weapons.

There are critics of the very idea of nuclear strategy for waging nuclear war who have suggested that a nuclear war between two nuclear powers would result in mutual annihilation. From this point of view, the significance of nuclear weapons is purely to deter war because any nuclear war would immediately escalate out of mutual distrust and fear, resulting in mutually assured destruction. This threat of national, if not global, destruction has been a strong motivation for anti-nuclear weapons activism.

Critics from the peace movement and within the military establishment have questioned the usefulness of such weapons in the current military climate. According to an advisory opinion issued by the International Court of Justice in 1996, the use of (or threat of use of) such weapons would generally be contrary to the rules of international law applicable in armed conflict, but the court did not reach an opinion as to whether or not the threat or use would be lawful in specific extreme circumstances such as if the survival of the state were at stake.

Perhaps the most controversial idea in nuclear strategy is that nuclear proliferation would be desirable. This view argues that, unlike conventional weapons, nuclear weapons successfully deter all-out war between states, and they are said to have done this during the Cold War between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. Political scientist Kenneth Waltz is the most prominent advocate of this argument.

The threat of potentially suicidal terrorists possessing nuclear weapons (a form of nuclear terrorism) complicates the decision process. The prospect of mutually assured destruction may not deter an enemy who expects to die in the confrontation. Further, if the initial act is from a rogue group instead of a sovereign nation, there is no fixed nation or fixed military targets to retaliate against. It has been argued, especially after the September 11, 2001 attacks, that this complication is the sign of the next age of nuclear strategy, distinct from the relative stability of the Cold War. In 1996, the United States adopted a policy of allowing the targeting of its nuclear weapons at terrorists armed with weapons of mass destruction.

Governance, control, and law

Because of the immense military power they can confer, the political control of nuclear weapons has been a key issue for as long as they have existed; in most countries the use of nuclear force can only be authorized by the head of government or head of state.

In the late 1940s, lack of mutual trust was preventing the United States and the Soviet Union from making ground towards international arms control agreements, but by the 1960s steps were being taken to limit both the proliferation of nuclear weapons to other countries and the environmental effects of nuclear testing. The Partial Test Ban Treaty (1963) restricted all nuclear testing to underground nuclear testing, to prevent contamination from nuclear fallout, while the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (1968) attempted to place restrictions on the types of activities which signatories could participate in, with the goal of allowing the transference of non-military nuclear technology to member countries without fear of proliferation.

In 1957, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was established under the mandate of the United Nations in order to encourage the development of the peaceful applications of nuclear technology, provide international safeguards against its misuse, and facilitate the application of safety measures in its use. In 1996, many nations signed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty which prohibits all testing of nuclear weapons, which would impose a significant hindrance to their development by any complying country. Due to the strict entry into force criterion of the convention however, it had as of 2011 not entered into force.

Additional treaties and agreements have governed nuclear weapons stockpiles between the countries with the two largest stockpiles, the United States and the Soviet Union, and later between the United States and Russia. These include treaties such as SALT II (never ratified), START I (expired), INF, START II (never ratified), SORT, and New START, as well as non-binding agreements such as SALT I and the Presidential Nuclear Initiatives of 1991. Even when they did not enter into force, these agreements helped limit and later reduce the numbers and types of nuclear weapons between the United States and the Soviet Union/Russia.

Nuclear weapons have also been opposed by agreements between countries. Many nations have been declared Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zones, areas where nuclear weapons production and deployment are prohibited, through the use of treaties. The Treaty of Tlatelolco (1967) prohibited any production or deployment of nuclear weapons in Latin America and the Caribbean, and the Treaty of Pelindaba (1964) prohibits nuclear weapons in many African countries. As recently as 2006 a Central Asian Nuclear Weapon Free Zone was established amongst the former Soviet republics of Central Asia prohibiting nuclear weapons.

In the middle of 1996, the International Court of Justice, the highest court of the United Nations, issued an Advisory Opinion concerned with the "Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons". The court ruled that the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons would violate various articles of international law, including the Geneva Conventions, the Hague Conventions, the UN Charter, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In view of the unique, destructive characteristics of nuclear weapons, the International Committee of the Red Cross calls on States to ensure that these weapons are never used, irrespective of whether they consider them to be lawful or not.

Additionally, there have been other, specific actions meant to discourage countries from developing nuclear arms. In the wake of the tests by India and Pakistan in 1998, economic sanctions were (temporarily) levied against both countries, though neither were signatories with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. One of the stated ''casus belli'' for the initiation of the 2003 Iraq War was an accusation by the United States that Iraq was actively pursuing nuclear arms (though this was soon discovered not to be the case as the program had been discontinued). In 1981, Israel had bombed a nuclear reactor being constructed in Osirak, Iraq, in what it called an attempt to halt Iraq's previous nuclear arms ambitions.

Disarmament

Nuclear disarmament refers to both the act of reducing or eliminating nuclear weapons and to the end state of a nuclear-free world, in which nuclear weapons are completely eliminated.

Beginning with the 1963 Partial Test Ban Treaty and continuing through the 1996 Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, there have been many treaties to limit or reduce nuclear weapons testing and stockpiles. The 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty has as one of its explicit conditions that all signatories must "pursue negotiations in good faith" towards the long-term goal of "complete disarmament". However, no nuclear state has treated that aspect of the agreement as having binding force.

Only one country—South Africa—has ever fully renounced nuclear weapons they had independently developed. A number of former Soviet republics—Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine—returned Soviet nuclear arms stationed in their countries to Russia after the collapse of the USSR.

Proponents of nuclear disarmament say that it would lessen the probability of nuclear war occurring, especially accidentally. Critics of nuclear disarmament say that it would undermine deterrence and could lead to increased global instability. Various American government officials, who were in office during the Cold War period, have recently been advocating the elimination of nuclear weapons. These officials include Henry Kissinger, George Shultz, Sam Nunn, and William Perry. In January 2010, Lawrence M. Krauss stated that "no issue carries more importance to the long-term health and security of humanity than the effort to reduce, and perhaps one day, rid the world of nuclear weapons".

In the years after the end of the Cold War, there have been numerous campaigns to urge the abolition of nuclear weapons, such as that organized by the Global Zero movement, and the goal of a "world without nuclear weapons" was advocated by United States President Barack Obama in an April 2009 speech in Prague. A CNN poll from April 2010 indicated that the American public was nearly evenly split on the issue.

Controversy

Even before the first nuclear weapons had been developed, scientists involved with the Manhattan Project were divided over the use of the weapon. The role of the two atomic bombings of the country in Japan's surrender and the U.S.'s ethical justification for them has been the subject of scholarly and popular debate for decades. The question of whether nations should have nuclear weapons, or test them, has been continually and nearly universally controversial.

Radioactive fallout from nuclear weapons testing was first drawn to public attention in 1954 when the Castle Bravo hydrogen bomb test at the Pacific Proving Grounds contaminated the crew and catch of the Japanese fishing boat ''Lucky Dragon''. One of the fishermen died in Japan seven months later, and the fear of contaminated tuna led to a temporary boycotting of the popular staple in Japan. The incident caused widespread concern around the world, especially regarding the effects of nuclear fallout and atmospheric nuclear testing, and "provided a decisive impetus for the emergence of the anti-nuclear weapons movement in many countries".

Peace movements emerged in Japan and in 1954 they converged to form a unified "Japanese Council Against Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs". Japanese opposition to nuclear weapons tests in the Pacific Ocean was widespread, and "an estimated 35 million signatures were collected on petitions calling for bans on nuclear weapons".

In the United Kingdom, the first Aldermaston March organised by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament took place at Easter 1958, when several thousand people marched for four days from Trafalgar Square, London, to the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment close to Aldermaston in Berkshire, England, to demonstrate their opposition to nuclear weapons. The Aldermaston marches continued into the late 1960s when tens of thousands of people took part in the four-day marches.

In 1959, a letter in the ''Bulletin of Atomic Scientists'' was the start of a successful campaign to stop the Atomic Energy Commission dumping radioactive waste in the sea 19 kilometres from Boston. In 1962, Linus Pauling won the Nobel Peace Prize for his work to stop the atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons, and the "Ban the Bomb" movement spread.

In 1963, many countries ratified the Partial Test Ban Treaty prohibiting atmospheric nuclear testing. Radioactive fallout became less of an issue and the anti-nuclear weapons movement went into decline for some years. A resurgence of interest occurred amid European and American fears of nuclear war in the 1980s.

Between 1940 and 1996, the U.S. spent at least $}} in present day terms on nuclear weapons development. Over half was spent on building delivery mechanisms for the weapon. $}} in present day terms was spent on nuclear waste management and environmental remediation.

Non-weapons uses

Apart from their use as weapons, nuclear explosives have been tested and used for various non-military uses, and proposed, but not used for large-scale earth moving. When long term health and clean-up costs were included, there was no economic advantage over conventional explosives.

Synthetic elements, such as einsteinium and fermium, created by neutron bombardment of uranium and plutonium during thermonuclear explosions, were discovered in the aftermath of the first thermonuclear bomb test. In 2008 the worldwide presence of new isotopes from atmospheric testing beginning in the 1950s was developed into a reliable way of detecting art forgeries, as all paintings created after that period may contain traces of cesium-137 and strontium-90, isotopes that did not exist in nature before 1945.

Nuclear explosives have also been seriously studied as potential propulsion mechanisms for space travel (see Project Orion) and for asteroid deflection.

See also

Aftermath

Nuclear summer

Nuclear winter

History

History of nuclear weapons

*German nuclear energy project

*Japanese atomic program

*Manhattan Project

*Soviet atomic bomb project

Los Alamos National Laboratory

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

Lists of nuclear disasters and radioactive incidents

Nuclear and radiation accidents, including nuclear weapons accidents

Nuclear testing

*Nevada Test Site

*Project Gnome

Military strategy

*Civil Defense

*Fractional Orbital Bombardment System

*Mutual Assured Destruction

Weapon of mass destruction

*Nuclear strategy

*Nuclear warfare

More technical details

Effects of nuclear explosions

Intercontinental ballistic missile

Neutron bomb

Nuclear bombs and health

Nuclear weapon design

Nuclear weapon yield

Popular culture

Nuclear weapons in popular culture

The Butter Battle Book

Proliferation and politics

Agency for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America and the Caribbean

Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty

International Court of Justice advisory opinion on legality of nuclear weapons

List of states with nuclear weapons

List of nuclear weapons

Nth Country Experiment

Nuclear disarmament

Nuclear explosive

Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty

Nuclear peace

Nuclear proliferation

Nuclear weapons and the United Kingdom

The Letters of last resort (United Kingdom)

Nuclear weapons and Russia

Nuclear weapons and the United States

Paranuclear

Strategic Arms Limitation Talks

Three Non-Nuclear Principles, of Japan

References

Notes

Bibliography

Bethe, Hans Albrecht. ''The Road from Los Alamos''. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1991. ISBN 0-671-74012-1

DeVolpi, Alexander, Minkov, Vladimir E., Simonenko, Vadim A., and Stanford, George S. ''Nuclear Shadowboxing: Contemporary Threats from Cold War Weaponry''. Fidlar Doubleday, 2004 (Two volumes, both accessible on Google Book Search) (Content of both volumes is now available in the 2009 trilogy by Alexander DeVolpi: ''Nuclear Insights: The Cold War Legacy'' available on .

Glasstone, Samuel and Dolan, Philip J. ''The Effects of Nuclear Weapons (third edition).'' Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1977. Available online (PDF).

''NATO Handbook on the Medical Aspects of NBC Defensive Operations (Part I – Nuclear)''. Departments of the Army, Navy, and Air Force: Washington, D.C., 1996

Hansen, Chuck. ''U.S. Nuclear Weapons: The Secret History.'' Arlington, TX: Aerofax, 1988

Hansen, Chuck. ''The Swords of Armageddon: U.S. nuclear weapons development since 1945.'' Sunnyvale, CA: Chukelea Publications, 1995.

Holloway, David. ''Stalin and the Bomb''. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994. ISBN 0-300-06056-4

The Manhattan Engineer District, "The Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki" (1946)

Smyth, Henry DeWolf. ''Atomic Energy for Military Purposes.'' Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1945. (Smyth Report the first declassified report by the US government on nuclear weapons)

''The Effects of Nuclear War''. Office of Technology Assessment, May 1979.

Rhodes, Richard. ''Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb''. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995. ISBN 0-684-82414-0

Rhodes, Richard. ''The Making of the Atomic Bomb''. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1986 ISBN 0-684-81378-5

Weart, Spencer R. ''Nuclear Fear: A History of Images''. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988.

External links

Current World Nuclear Arsenals has estimates of nuclear arsenals in the respective countries.

General

Nuclear Weapon Archive from Carey Sublette is a reliable source of information and has links to other sources and an informative FAQ.

The Federation of American Scientists provide solid information on weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear weapons and their effects

Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues—contains many resources related to nuclear weapons, including a historical and technical overview and searchable bibliography of web and print resources.

Everything you wanted to know about nuclear technology—Provided by ''New Scientist''.

Congressional Research Service (CRS) Reports regarding Nuclear weapons

Video archive of US, Soviet, UK, Chinese and French Nuclear Weapon Testing at sonicbomb.com

The National Museum of Nuclear Science & History (United States)—located in Albuquerque, New Mexico; a Smithsonian Affiliate Museum

Historical

The Manhattan Project: Making the Atomic Bomb at AtomicArchive.com

Los Alamos National Laboratory: History (U.S. nuclear history)

''Race for the Superbomb'', PBS website on the history of the H-bomb

U.S. nuclear test photographs from the DOE Nevada Site Office

U.S. nuclear test film clips from the DOE Nevada Site Office

Recordings of recollections of the victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Category:American inventions Category:Articles containing video clips

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name	C. S. Lewis
birth name	Clive Staples Lewis
alt	Monochrome head-and-left-shoulder photo portrait of 50-year-old Lewis
birth date	November 29, 1898
birth place	Belfast, Ireland
death date	November 22, 1963
death place	Oxford, England
occupation	Novelist, scholar, broadcaster
nationality	British
genre	Fantasy, science fiction, Christian apologetics, children's literature
notableworks	''The Chronicles of Narnia'' ''Mere Christianity'' ''The Allegory of Love'' ''The Screwtape Letters'' The Space Trilogy ''Till We Have Faces''''Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life''
signature	CS Lewis Signature.svg }}

Clive Staples Lewis (29 November 1898 22 November 1963), commonly referred to as C. S. Lewis and known to his friends and family as "Jack", was a British novelist, academic, medievalist, literary critic, essayist, lay theologian and Christian apologist from Ireland. He is well known for his fictional work, especially ''The Screwtape Letters'', ''The Chronicles of Narnia'' and ''The Space Trilogy''.

Lewis was a close friend of J. R. R. Tolkien, and both authors were leading figures in the English faculty at Oxford University and in the informal Oxford literary group known as the "Inklings". According to his memoir ''Surprised by Joy'', Lewis had been baptised in the Church of Ireland (part of the Anglican Communion) at birth, but fell away from his faith during his adolescence. Owing to the influence of Tolkien and other friends, at the age of 32 Lewis returned to the Anglican Communion, becoming "a very ordinary layman of the Church of England". His faith had a profound effect on his work, and his wartime radio broadcasts on the subject of Christianity brought him wide acclaim.

In 1956 he married the American writer Joy Gresham, 17 years his junior, who died four years later of cancer at the age of 45. Lewis died three years after his wife, as the result of renal failure. His death came one week before his 65th birthday. Media coverage of his death was minimal, as he died on 22 November 1963 – the same day that U.S. President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, and the same day another famous author, Aldous Huxley, died. Lewis's works have been translated into more than 30 languages and have sold millions of copies. The books that make up ''The Chronicles of Narnia'' have sold the most and have been popularised on stage, TV, radio and cinema.

Biography

Childhood

Clive Staples Lewis was born in Belfast, Ireland, on 29 November 1898. His father was Albert James Lewis (1863–1929), a solicitor whose father, Richard, had come to Ireland from Wales during the mid 19th century. His mother was Florence Augusta Lewis, née Hamilton (1862–1908), known as Flora, the daughter of a Church of Ireland (Anglican) priest. He had an elder brother, Warren Hamilton Lewis. At the age of four, shortly after his dog Jacksie was killed by a car, he announced that his name was now Jacksie. At first he would answer to no other name, but later accepted Jack, the name by which he was known to friends and family for the rest of his life. When he was seven, his family moved into "Little Lea", the family home of his childhood, in the Strandtown area of East Belfast.

As a boy, Lewis had a fascination with anthropomorphic animals, falling in love with Beatrix Potter's stories and often writing and illustrating his own animal stories. He and his brother Warnie together created the world of Boxen, inhabited and run by animals. Lewis loved to read, and as his father's house was filled with books, he felt that finding a book to read was as easy as walking into a field and "finding a new blade of grass."

Lewis was schooled by private tutors before being sent to the Wynyard School in Watford, Hertfordshire, in 1908, just after his mother's death from cancer. Lewis' brother had enrolled there three years previously. The school was closed not long afterwards due to a lack of pupils; the headmaster Robert "Oldie" Capron was soon after committed to a psychiatric hospital. Lewis then attended Campbell College in the east of Belfast about a mile from his home, but he left after a few months due to respiratory problems. He was then sent to the health-resort town of Malvern, Worcestershire, where he attended the preparatory school Cherbourg House, which Lewis calls "Chartres" in his autobiography. It was during this time that Lewis abandoned his childhood Christian faith and became an atheist, becoming interested in mythology and the occult. In September 1913, Lewis enrolled at Malvern College, where he remained until the following June. He found the school socially competitive. After leaving Malvern he studied privately with William T. Kirkpatrick, his father's old tutor and former headmaster of Lurgan College.

As a teenager, he was wonderstruck by the songs and legends of what he called ''Northernness'', the ancient literature of Scandinavia preserved in the Icelandic sagas. These legends intensified an inner longing he later called "joy". He also grew to love nature; its beauty reminded him of the stories of the North, and the stories of the North reminded him of the beauties of nature. His teenage writings moved away from the tales of Boxen, and he began using different art forms (epic poetry and opera) to try to capture his new-found interest in Norse mythology and the natural world. Studying with Kirkpatrick ("The Great Knock", as Lewis afterwards called him) instilled in him a love of Greek literature and mythology and sharpened his skills in debate and sound reasoning. In 1916, Lewis was awarded a scholarship at University College, Oxford.

"My Irish life"

Lewis experienced a certain cultural shock on first arriving in England: "No Englishman will be able to understand my first impressions of England", Lewis wrote in ''Surprised by Joy'', continuing, "The strange English accents with which I was surrounded seemed like the voices of demons. But what was worst was the English landscape ... I have made up the quarrel since; but at that moment I conceived a hatred for England which took many years to heal."

From boyhood Lewis immersed himself firstly in Norse and Greek and then in Irish mythology and literature and expressed an interest in the Irish language, though there is not much evidence that he laboured to learn it. He developed a particular fondness for W. B. Yeats, in part because of Yeats's use of Ireland's Celtic heritage in poetry. In a letter to a friend Lewis wrote, "I have here discovered an author exactly after my own heart, whom I am sure you would delight in, W. B. Yeats. He writes plays and poems of rare spirit and beauty about our old Irish mythology."

In 1921, Lewis met Yeats twice, since Yeats had moved to Oxford. Surprised to find his English peers indifferent to Yeats and the Celtic Revival movement, Lewis wrote: "I am often surprised to find how utterly ignored Yeats is among the men I have met: perhaps his appeal is purely Irish – if so, then thank the gods that I am Irish." Early in his career, Lewis considered sending his work to the major Dublin publishers, writing: "If I do ever send my stuff to a publisher, I think I shall try Maunsel, those Dublin people, and so tack myself definitely onto the Irish school."

Lewis occasionally expressed a somewhat tongue-in-cheek chauvinism toward the English. Describing an encounter with a fellow Irishman he wrote: "Like all Irish people who meet in England we ended by criticisms on the invincible flippancy and dulness of the Anglo-Saxon race. After all, there is no doubt, ami, that the Irish are the only people: with all their faults I would not gladly live or die among another folk." Throughout his life, he sought out the company of other Irish living in England and visited Northern Ireland regularly, even spending his honeymoon there in 1958 at the Old Inn, Crawfordsburn. He called this "my Irish life."

Various critics have suggested that it was Lewis's dismay over sectarian conflict in his native Belfast that led him to eventually adopt such an ecumenical brand of Christianity. As one critic has said, Lewis "repeatedly extolled the virtues of all branches of the Christian faith, emphasising a need for unity among Christians around what the Catholic writer G.K. Chesterton called ‘Mere Christianity’, the core doctrinal beliefs that all denominations share." On the other hand, Paul Stevens of the University of Toronto has written that "Lewis's ''Mere Christianity'' masked many of the political prejudices of an old-fashioned Ulster Protestant, a native of middle-class Belfast for whom British withdrawal from Northern Ireland even in the 1950s and 1960s was unthinkable"

World War I

In 1917, Lewis left his studies to volunteer in the British Army. During World War I he was commissioned an officer in the Third Battalion, Somerset Light Infantry. Lewis arrived at the front line in the Somme Valley in France on his nineteenth birthday, and experienced trench warfare.

On 15 April 1918, Lewis was wounded and two of his colleagues were killed by an English shell falling short of its target. Lewis suffered from depression and homesickness during his convalescence. Upon his recovery in October, he was assigned to duty in Andover, England. He was discharged in December 1918, and soon returned to his studies. Lewis received a First in Honour Moderations (Greek and Latin Literature) in 1920, a First in Greats (Philosophy and Ancient History) in 1922, and a First in English in 1923.

Jane Moore

While being trained for the army Lewis shared a room with another cadet, Edward Courtnay Francis "Paddy" Moore (1898–1918). Maureen Moore, Paddy's sister, said that the two made a mutual pact that if either died during the war, the survivor would take care of both their families. Paddy was killed in action in 1918 and Lewis kept his promise. Paddy had earlier introduced Lewis to his mother, Jane King Moore, and a friendship quickly sprang up between Lewis, who was eighteen when they met, and Jane, who was forty-five. The friendship with Mrs. Moore was particularly important to Lewis while he was recovering from his wounds in hospital, as his father did not visit Lewis.

Lewis lived with and cared for Mrs. Moore until she was hospitalised in the late 1940s. He routinely introduced her as his "mother", and referred to her as such in letters. Lewis, whose own mother had died when he was a child and whose father was distant, demanding and eccentric, developed a deeply affectionate friendship with Mrs. Moore.

Speculation regarding their relationship re-surfaced with the publication of A. N. Wilson's biography of Lewis. Wilson (who had never met Lewis) attempted to make a case for their having been lovers for a time. Wilson's biography was not the first to address the question of Lewis's relationship with Mrs. Moore. George Sayer, who knew Lewis for 29 years, sought to shed light on the relationship during the period of 14 years prior to Lewis's conversion to Christianity, in his biography ''Jack: A Life of C. S. Lewis'', in which he wrote:

Were they lovers? Owen Barfield, who knew Jack well in the 1920s, once said that he thought the likelihood was "fifty-fifty." Although she was twenty-six years older than Jack, she was still a handsome woman, and he was certainly infatuated with her. But it seems very odd, if they were lovers, that he would call her "mother." We know, too, that they did not share the same bedroom. It seems most likely that he was bound to her by the promise he had given to Paddy and that his promise was reinforced by his love for her as his second mother.

Later Sayer changed his mind. In the introduction to the 1997 edition of his biography of Lewis he wrote:

I have had to alter my opinion of Lewis's relationship with Mrs. Moore. In chapter eight of this book I wrote that I was uncertain about whether they were lovers. Now after conversations with Mrs. Moore's daughter, Maureen, and a consideration of the way in which their bedrooms were arranged at The Kilns, I am quite certain that they were.

Lewis spoke well of Mrs. Moore throughout his life, saying to his friend George Sayer, "She was generous and taught me to be generous, too."

In December 1917 Lewis wrote in a letter to his childhood friend Arthur Greeves that Jane and Greeves were "the two people who matter most to me in the world."

In 1930, Lewis and his brother Warnie moved, with Mrs. Moore and her daughter Maureen, into "The Kilns", a house in the district of Headington Quarry on the outskirts of Oxford (now part of the suburb of Risinghurst). They all contributed financially to the purchase of the house, which passed to Maureen, then Dame Maureen Dunbar, Btss., when Warren died in 1973.

Mrs. Moore suffered from dementia in her later years and was eventually moved into a nursing home, where she died in 1951. Lewis visited her every day in this home until her death.

Conversion to Christianity

Lewis was raised in a church-going family in the Church of Ireland. He became an atheist at 15, though he later described his young self as being paradoxically "very angry with God for not existing".

His early separation from Christianity began when he started to view his religion as a chore and as a duty; around this time, he also gained an interest in the occult, as his studies expanded to include such topics. Lewis quoted Lucretius (''De rerum natura'', 5.198–9) as having one of the strongest arguments for atheism:

:''Nequaquam nobis divinitus esse paratam'' :''Naturam rerum; tanta stat praedita culpa''

:"Had God designed the world, it would not be :A world so frail and faulty as we see."

Lewis's interest in the works of George MacDonald was part of what turned him from atheism. This can be seen particularly well through this passage in Lewis's ''The Great Divorce'', chapter nine, when the semi-autobiographical main character meets MacDonald in Heaven:

...I tried, trembling, to tell this man all that his writings had done for me. I tried to tell how a certain frosty afternoon at Leatherhead Station when I had first bought a copy of ''Phantastes'' (being then about sixteen years old) had been to me what the first sight of Beatrice had been to Dante: ''Here begins the new life''. I started to confess how long that Life had delayed in the region of imagination merely: how slowly and reluctantly I had come to admit that his Christendom had more than an accidental connexion with it, how hard I had tried not to see the true name of the quality which first met me in his books is Holiness.

He slowly re-embraced Christianity, influenced by arguments with his Oxford colleague and friend J. R. R. Tolkien, whom he seems to have met for the first time on 11 May 1926, and by the book ''The Everlasting Man'' by G. K. Chesterton. He fought greatly up to the moment of his conversion, noting that he was brought into Christianity like a prodigal, "kicking, struggling, resentful, and darting his eyes in every direction for a chance to escape." He described his last struggle in ''Surprised by Joy'':

You must picture me alone in that room in Magdalen, night after night, feeling, whenever my mind lifted even for a second from my work, the steady, unrelenting approach of Him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet. That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me. In the Trinity Term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England.

After his conversion to theism in 1929, Lewis converted to Christianity in 1931, following a long discussion and late-night walk with his close friends Tolkien and Hugo Dyson. He records making a specific commitment to Christian belief while on his way to the zoo with his brother. He became a member of the Church of England – somewhat to the disappointment of Tolkien, who had hoped that he would convert to Roman Catholicism.

Lewis was a committed Anglican who upheld a largely orthodox Anglican theology, though in his apologetic writings, he made an effort to avoid espousing any one denomination. In his later writings, some believe that he proposed ideas such as purification of venial sins after death in purgatory (''The Great Divorce'' and ''Letters to Malcolm'') and mortal sin (''The Screwtape Letters''), which are generally considered to be Roman Catholic teachings, although they are also widely held in Anglicanism (particularly in high church Anglo-Catholic circles). Regardless, Lewis considered himself an entirely orthodox Anglican to the end of his life, reflecting that he had initially attended church only to receive communion and had been repelled by the hymns and the poor quality of the sermons. He later came to consider himself honoured by worshipping with men of faith who came in shabby clothes and work boots and who sang all the verses to all the hymns.

Joy Gresham

In Lewis's later life, he corresponded with and later met Joy Davidman Gresham, an American writer of Jewish background, a former Communist, and a convert from atheism to Christianity. She was separated from her alcoholic and abusive husband, the novelist William L. Gresham, and came to England with her two sons, David and Douglas. Lewis at first regarded her as an agreeable intellectual companion and personal friend, and it was at least overtly on this level that he agreed to enter into a civil marriage contract with her so that she could continue to live in the UK. Lewis's brother Warnie wrote: "For Jack the attraction was at first undoubtedly intellectual. Joy was the only woman whom he had met... who had a brain which matched his own in suppleness, in width of interest, and in analytical grasp, and above all in humour and a sense of fun" . However, after complaining of a painful hip, she was diagnosed with terminal bone cancer, and the relationship developed to the point that they sought a Christian marriage. Since she was divorced, this was not straightforward in the Church of England at the time, but a friend, the Rev. Peter Bide, performed the ceremony at her hospital bed in March 1957.

Gresham's cancer soon went into a brief remission, and the couple lived as a family (together with Warren Lewis) until her eventual relapse and death in 1960. The year she died, the couple took a brief holiday in Greece and the Aegean in 1960; Lewis was fond of walking but not of travel, and this marked his only crossing of the English Channel after 1918. Lewis's book ''A Grief Observed'' describes his experience of bereavement in such a raw and personal fashion that Lewis originally released it under the pseudonym N.W. Clerk to keep readers from associating the book with him. Ironically, many friends recommended the book to Lewis as a method for dealing with his own grief. His authorship was made public after his death by Faber's, with the permission of the executors.

Lewis continued to raise Gresham's two sons after her death. While Douglas Gresham is, like Lewis and his mother, a Christian, David Gresham turned to the faith into which his mother had been born and became Orthodox Jewish in his beliefs. His mother's writings had featured the Jews, particularly one "shohet" (ritual slaughterer), in an unsympathetic manner. David informed Lewis that he was going to become a ritual slaughterer in order to present this type of Jewish religious functionary to the world in a more favourable light. In a 2005 interview, Douglas Gresham acknowledged he and his brother were not close, but he did say they are in email contact. Douglas remains involved in the affairs of the Lewis estate.

Illness and death

In early June 1961, Lewis began experiencing medical problems and was diagnosed with inflammation of the kidneys which resulted in blood poisoning. His illness caused him to miss the autumn term at Cambridge, though his health gradually began improving in 1962 and he returned that April. Lewis's health continued to improve, and according to his friend George Sayer, Lewis was fully himself by the spring of 1963. However, on 15 July 1963 he fell ill and was admitted to hospital. The next day at 5:00 pm, Lewis suffered a heart attack and lapsed into a coma, unexpectedly awaking the following day at 2:00 pm. After he was discharged from the hospital, Lewis returned to the Kilns, though he was too ill to return to work. As a result, he resigned from his post at Cambridge in August. Lewis's condition continued to decline, and in mid-November he was diagnosed with end-stage renal failure. On 22 November 1963 Lewis collapsed in his bedroom at 5:30 pm and died a few minutes later, exactly one week before his 65th birthday. He is buried in the churchyard of Holy Trinity Church, Headington, Oxford . Almost 10 years later, his brother Warren Hamilton "Warnie" Lewis, who died on 9 April 1973, was buried next to him.

Media coverage of his death was almost completely overshadowed by news of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, which occurred on the same day, as did the death of Aldous Huxley, author of ''Brave New World''. This coincidence was the inspiration for Peter Kreeft's book ''Between Heaven and Hell: A Dialog Somewhere Beyond Death with John F. Kennedy, C. S. Lewis, & Aldous Huxley'' .

C. S. Lewis is commemorated on 22 November in the church calendar of the Episcopal Church.

Career

Scholar

thumb|right|Magdalen College, Oxford Lewis began his academic career as an undergraduate student at Oxford, where he won a triple first, the highest honours in three areas of study. Lewis then taught as a fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, for nearly thirty years, from 1925 to 1954, and later was the first Professor of Medieval and Renaissance English at the University of Cambridge and a fellow of Magdalene College, Cambridge. Using this position, he argued that there was no such thing as an English Renaissance. Much of his scholarly work concentrated on the later Middle Ages, especially its use of allegory. His ''The Allegory of Love'' (1936) helped reinvigorate the serious study of late medieval narratives like the ''Roman de la Rose''. Lewis wrote several prefaces to old works of literature and poetry, like Layamon's ''Brut''. His book "A Preface to ''Paradise Lost''" is still one of the most valuable criticisms of that work. His last academic work, ''The Discarded Image: An Introduction to Medieval and Renaissance Literature'' (1964), is a summary of the medieval world view, the "discarded image" of the cosmos in his title.

thumb|left|upright|The Eagle and Child pub in Oxford where the Inklings met on Tuesday mornings in 1939Lewis was a prolific writer, and his circle of literary friends became an informal discussion society known as the "Inklings", including J. R. R. Tolkien, Nevill Coghill, Lord David Cecil, Charles Williams, Owen Barfield, and his brother Warren Lewis. At least one scholar points to December 1929 as the Inklings' beginning date. Lewis's friendship with Coghill and Tolkien grew during their time as members of the Kolbítar, an Old Norse reading group Tolkien founded and which ended around the time of the inception of the Inklings. At Oxford he was the tutor of, among many other undergraduates, poet John Betjeman, critic Kenneth Tynan, mystic Bede Griffiths, and Sufi scholar Martin Lings. Curiously, the religious and conservative Betjeman detested Lewis, whereas the anti-Establishment Tynan retained a life-long admiration for him .

Of Tolkien, Lewis writes in ''Surprised by Joy'':

When I began teaching for the English Faculty, I made two other friends, both Christians (these queer people seemed now to pop up on every side) who were later to give me much help in getting over the last stile. They were H.V.V. Dyson ... and J.R.R. Tolkien. Friendship with the latter marked the breakdown of two old prejudices. At my first coming into the world I had been (implicitly) warned never to trust a Papist, and at my first coming into the English Faculty (explicitly) never to trust a philologist. Tolkien was both.

Novelist

In addition to his scholarly work, Lewis wrote a number of popular novels, including his science fiction The Space Trilogy and his fantasy fiction Narnian books, most dealing implicitly with Christian themes such as sin, humanity's fall from grace, and redemption.

''The Pilgrim's Regress''

His first novel after becoming a Christian was ''The Pilgrim's Regress,'' which depicted his experience with Christianity in the style of John Bunyan's ''The Pilgrim's Progress''. The book was poorly received by critics at the time, although D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, one of Lewis's contemporaries at Oxford, gave him much-valued encouragement. Asked by Lloyd-Jones when he would write another book, Lewis replied, "When I understand the meaning of prayer."

"Space Trilogy" novels

His "Space Trilogy" or "Ransom Trilogy" novels (also called the "Cosmic Trilogy") dealt with what Lewis saw as the de-humanising trends in contemporary science fiction. The first book, ''Out of the Silent Planet'', was apparently written following a conversation with his friend J. R. R. Tolkien about these trends; Lewis agreed to write a "space travel" story and Tolkien a "time travel" one. Tolkien's story, "The Lost Road", a tale connecting his Middle-earth mythology and the modern world, was never completed. Lewis's main character of Ransom is based in part on Tolkien, a fact that Tolkien himself alludes to in his ''Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien''. The second novel, ''Perelandra'', depicts a new Garden of Eden on the planet Venus, a new Adam and Eve, and a new "serpent figure" to tempt them. The story can be seen as a hypothesis of what could have happened if the terrestrial Eve had resisted the serpent's temptation and avoided the Fall of Man. The last novel in the Trilogy, ''That Hideous Strength'', further develops the theme of nihilistic science threatening traditional human values embodied in Arthurian legend (and making reference to Tolkien's fictional universe of Middle-earth).

Many of the ideas in the Trilogy, particularly the opposition to de-humanization in the third volume, are presented more formally in Lewis’ ''The Abolition of Man'', based on his series of lectures at Durham University in 1943. Lewis stayed in Durham, where he was overwhelmed by the cathedral. ''That Hideous Strength'' is in fact set in the environs of 'Edgestow' university, a small English university like Durham, though Lewis disclaims any other resemblance between the two.

Walter Hooper, Lewis's literary executor, discovered a fragment of another science-fiction novel by Lewis, ''The Dark Tower'', but it is unfinished; it is not clear whether the book was intended as part of the same series of novels. The manuscript was eventually published in 1977, though Lewis scholar Kathryn Lindskoog doubts its authenticity.

''The Chronicles of Narnia''

''The Chronicles of Narnia'' is a series of seven fantasy novels for children and is considered a classic of children's literature. Written between 1949 and 1954 and illustrated by Pauline Baynes, the series is Lewis's most popular work, having sold over 100 million copies in 41 languages . It has been adapted several times, complete or in part, for radio, television, stage and cinema.

The books contain Christian ideas intended to be easily accessible to young readers. In addition to Christian themes, Lewis also borrows characters from Greek and Roman mythology as well as traditional British and Irish fairy tales.

Other works

Lewis wrote a number of works on Heaven and Hell. One of these, ''The Great Divorce'', is a short novella in which a few residents of Hell take a bus ride to Heaven, where they are met by people who dwell there. The proposition is that they can stay (in which case they can call the place where they had come from "Purgatory", instead of "Hell"); but many find it not to their taste. The title is a reference to William Blake's ''The Marriage of Heaven and Hell'', a concept that Lewis found a "disastrous error" . This work deliberately echoes two other more famous works with a similar theme: the ''Divine Comedy'' of Dante Alighieri, and Bunyan's ''The Pilgrim's Progress''. Another short work, ''The Screwtape Letters'', consists of suave letters of advice from a senior demon, Screwtape, to his nephew Wormwood, on the best ways to tempt a particular human and secure his damnation. Lewis's last novel was ''Till We Have Faces'', which he thought of as his most mature and masterly work of fiction but which was never a popular success. It is a retelling of the myth of Cupid and Psyche from the unusual perspective of Psyche's sister. It is deeply concerned with religious ideas, but the setting is entirely pagan, and the connections with specific Christian beliefs are left implicit.

Before Lewis's conversion to Christianity, he published two books: ''Spirits in Bondage'', a collection of poems, and ''Dymer'', a single narrative poem. Both were published under the pen name Clive Hamilton. Other narrative poems have since been published posthumously, including: ''Launcelot'', ''The Nameless Isle'', and ''The Queen of Drum''.

He also wrote The Four Loves, which rhetorically explains four loves including friendship, eros, affection, and charity or caritas.

In 2009, a partial draft of Language and Human Nature, which Lewis had begun co-writing with J.R.R. Tolkien, but which was never completed, was discovered.

Christian apologist

In addition to his career as an English professor and an author of fiction, Lewis is regarded by many as one of the most influential Christian apologists of his time; ''Mere Christianity'' was voted best book of the twentieth century by ''Christianity Today'' in 2000. Due to Lewis's approach to religious belief as a sceptic, and his following conversion, he has been called "The Apostle to the Skeptics."

Lewis was very interested in presenting a reasonable case for Christianity. ''Mere Christianity'', ''The Problem of Pain'', and ''Miracles'' were all concerned, to one degree or another, with refuting popular objections to Christianity, such as "How could a good God allow pain to exist in the world?". He also became known as a popular lecturer and broadcaster, and some of his writing (including much of ''Mere Christianity'') originated as scripts for radio talks or lectures.

According to George Sayer, a loss in a 1948 debate with Elizabeth Anscombe, also a Christian, led Lewis to reevaluate his role as an apologist, and his future works concentrated on devotional literature and children's books. Anscombe, however, had a completely different recollection of the debate's outcome and its emotional effect on Lewis. Victor Reppert also disputes Sayer, listing some of Lewis's post-1948 apologetic publications, including the second and revised edition of his ''Miracles'' in 1960, in which Lewis addressed Anscombe's criticism. Noteworthy too is Roger Teichman's suggestion in ''The Philosophy of Elizabeth Anscombe'' that the intellectual impact of Anscombe's paper on Lewis's philosophical self-confidence should not be overrated: "... it seems unlikely that he felt as irretrievably crushed as some of his acquaintances have made out; the episode is probably an inflated legend, in the same category as the affair of Wittgenstein's poker. Certainly Anscombe herself believed that Lewis' argument, though flawed, was getting at something very important; she thought that this came out more in the improved version of it that Lewis presented in a subsequent edition of ''Miracles'' – though that version also had 'much to criticise in it'."

Lewis also wrote an autobiography titled ''Surprised by Joy'', which places special emphasis on his own conversion. (It was written before he met his wife, Joy Gresham; the title of the book came from the first line of a poem by William Wordsworth.) His essays and public speeches on Christian belief, many of which were collected in ''God in the Dock'' and ''The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses'', remain popular today.

His most famous works, the ''Chronicles of Narnia'', contain many strong Christian messages and are often considered allegory. Lewis, an expert on the subject of allegory, maintained that the books were not allegory, and preferred to call the Christian aspects of them "suppositional". As Lewis wrote in a letter to a Mrs. Hook in December 1958:

If Aslan represented the immaterial Deity in the same way in which Giant Despair [a character in ''The Pilgrim's Progress''] represents despair, he would be an allegorical figure. In reality however he is an invention giving an imaginary answer to the question, 'What might Christ become like, if there really were a world like Narnia and He chose to be incarnate and die and rise again in that world as He actually has done in ours?' This is not allegory at all.

"Trilemma"

In a much-cited passage from ''Mere Christianity'', Lewis challenged the view that Jesus, although a great moral teacher, was not God. He argued that Jesus made several implicit claims to divinity, which would logically exclude this:

I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: 'I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God.' That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic – on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg – or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronising nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.

This argument, which Lewis did not invent but developed and popularised, is sometimes referred to as "Lewis's trilemma". It has been used by the Christian apologist Josh McDowell in his book ''More Than a Carpenter'' . Although widely repeated in Christian apologetic literature, it has been largely ignored by professional theologians and biblical scholars and is regarded by some as logically unsound and an example of false dilemma.

Lewis's Christian apologetics, and this argument in particular, have been criticised. Philosopher John Beversluis described Lewis's arguments as "textually careless and theologically unreliable". Pluralist theologian, John Hick argues that New Testament scholarship today does not support the view that Jesus claimed to be God. The Anglican bishop, N. T. Wright, who, unlike Hicks, does believe in Jesus' divinity, comments that Lewis' approach to Jesus' identity, by ignoring his Jewish background, "doesn't work as history, and it backfires dangerously when historical critics question his reading of the gospels."

Lewis used a similar argument in ''The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe'', when Digory Kirke advises the young heroes that their sister's claims of a magical world must logically be taken as either lies, madness, or truth. and "On the Pains of Animals."

Legacy

Lewis continues to attract a wide readership. In 2008, ''The Times'' ranked him eleventh on their list of "the 50 greatest British writers since 1945". Readers of his fiction are often unaware of what Lewis considered the Christian themes of his works. His Christian apologetics are read and quoted by members of many Christian denominations .

Lewis has been the subject of several biographies, a few of which were written by some of his close friends, such as Roger Lancelyn Green and George Sayer. In 1985 the screenplay ''Shadowlands'' by William Nicholson, dramatising Lewis's life and relationship with Joy Davidman Gresham, was aired on British TV (starring Joss Ackland as Lewis and Claire Bloom as Joy). In 1989 this was staged as a theatre play (starring Nigel Hawthorne) and in 1993 ''Shadowlands'' became a feature film, starring Anthony Hopkins as Lewis and Debra Winger as Joy. In 2005, a one hour made for TV movie entitled ''C. S. Lewis: Beyond Narnia'' (starring Anton Rodgers) provided a general synopsis of Lewis's life.

Many books have been inspired by Lewis, including ''A Severe Mercy'' by his correspondent and friend Sheldon Vanauken. ''The Chronicles of Narnia'' have been particularly influential. Modern children's literature such as Daniel Handler's ''A Series of Unfortunate Events'', Eoin Colfer's ''Artemis Fowl'', Philip Pullman's ''His Dark Materials'', and J. K. Rowling's ''Harry Potter'' have been more or less influenced by Lewis's series . Pullman, an atheist and so fierce a critic of Lewis's work as to be dubbed "the anti-Lewis", considers him a negative influence and has accused Lewis of featuring religious propaganda, misogyny, racism and emotional sadism in his books. Authors of adult fantasy literature such as Tim Powers have also testified to being influenced by Lewis's work.

Most of Lewis’ posthumous work has been edited by his literary executor, Walter Hooper. An independent Lewis scholar, the late Kathryn Lindskoog, argued that Hooper's scholarship is not reliable and that he has made false statements and attributed forged works to Lewis . C. S. Lewis's stepson, Douglas Gresham, denies the forgery claims, saying that "The whole controversy thing was engineered for very personal reasons... Her fanciful theories have been pretty thoroughly discredited." .

A bronze statue of Lewis's character Digory, from ''The Magician's Nephew'', stands in Belfast's Holywood Arches in front of the Holywood Road Library .

Lewis was strongly opposed to the creation of live-action versions of his works. His major concern was that the anthropomorphic animal characters "when taken out of narrative into actual visibility, always turn into buffoonery or nightmare".

Several C. S. Lewis Societies exist around the world, including one which was founded in Oxford in 1982 to discuss papers on the life and works of Lewis and the other Inklings, and generally appreciate all things Lewisian. His name is also used by a variety of Christian organisations, often with a concern for maintaining conservative Christian values in education or literary studies.

The 2005 film adaptation of ''The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe'' was based on the first instalment of the Narnia series. Film adaptations have been made of two other books he wrote: ''Prince Caspian'' (released on 16 May 2008) and ''The Voyage of the Dawn Treader'' (released on 2 December 2010). A film adaptation of ''The Great Divorce'' is slated for release in 2011.

Lewis is featured as a main character in the Chronicles of the Imaginarium Geographica series by James A. Owen.

See also

Marion E. Wade Center at Wheaton College (Illinois) – has the world's largest collection of Lewis's works and works about him.

Bibliography

Secondary works

John Beversluis, ''C. S. Lewis and the Search for Rational Religion''. Eerdmans, 1985. ISBN 0-8028-0046-7

Ronald W. Bresland, ''The Backward Glance: C.S. Lewis and Ireland''. Institute of Irish Studies at Queen's University of Belfast, 1999.

Humphrey Carpenter, ''The Inklings: C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, Charles Williams and their friends''. George Allen & Unwin, 1978. ISBN 0-04-809011-5

Joe R. Christopher & Joan K. Ostling, ''C. S. Lewis: An Annotated Checklist of Writings about him and his Works''. Kent State University Press, n.d. (1972). ISBN 0-87338-138-6

David Clare, "C.S. Lewis: An Irish Writer". ''Irish Studies Review'', Volume 18, Issue 1, February 2010, pages 17 – 38.

James Como, ''Branches to Heaven: The Geniuses of C. S. Lewis''. Spence, 1998.

James Como, ''Remembering C. S. Lewis'' (3rd ed. of ''C. S. Lewis at the Breakfast Table''). Ignatius, 2006

Sean Connolly, ''Inklings of Heaven: C. S. Lewis and Eschatology''. Gracewing, 2007. ISBN 978-0-85244-659-1

Michael Coren, ''The Man Who Created Narnia: The Story of C. S. Lewis''. Eerdmans, reprint edition 1996. ISBN 0-8028-3822-7

Christopher Derrick, ''C. S. Lewis and the Church of Rome: A Study in Proto-Ecumenism''. Ignatius Press, 1981. ISBN 978-9991718507

David C. Downing, ''Into the Region of Awe: Mysticism in C. S. Lewis''. InterVarsity, 2005. ISBN 0-8308-3284-X

David C. Downing, ''Into the Wardrobe: C. S. Lewis and the Narnia Chronicles''. Jossey-Bass, 2005. ISBN 0-7879-7890-6

David C. Downing, ''The Most Reluctant Convert: C. S. Lewis's Journey to Faith''. InterVarsity, 2002. ISBN 0-8308-3271-8

David C. Downing, ''Planets in Peril: A Critical Study of C. S. Lewis's Ransom Trilogy''. University of Massachusetts Press, 1992. ISBN 0-87023-997-X

Colin Duriez and David Porter, ''The Inklings Handbook: The Lives, Thought and Writings of C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, Charles Williams, Owen Barfield, and Their Friends''. 2001. ISBN 1-902694-13-9

Colin Duriez, ''Tolkien and C. S. Lewis: The Gift of Friendship''. Paulist Press, 2003. ISBN 1-58768-026-2

Bruce L. Edwards, ''Not a Tame Lion: The Spiritual World of Narnia''. Tyndale, 2005. ISBN 1414303815

Bruce L. Edwards, ''Further Up and Further In: Understanding C. S. Lewis's The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe''. Broadman and Holman, 2005. ISBN 0805440704

Bruce L. Edwards (ed.), ''C. S. Lewis: Life, Works, and Legacy''. 4 Vol. Praeger Perspectives, 2007. ISBN 0275991164

Bruce L. Edwards (ed.), ''The Taste of the Pineapple: Essays on C. S. Lewis as Reader, Critic, and Imaginative Writer''. The Popular Press, 1988. ISBN 0879724072

Bruce L. Edwards, ''A Rhetoric of Reading: C. S. Lewis's Defense of Western Literacy''. Center for the Study of Christian Values in Literature, 1986. ISBN 0939555018

Alastair Fowler, "C. S. Lewis: Supervisor", ''Yale Review'', Vol. 91, No. 4 (October 2003).

Helen Gardner, "† Clive Staples Lewis, 1898–1963". Biographical memoir, in ''Proceedings of the British Academy'' 51 (1966), 417-428.

Jocelyn Gibb (ed.), ''Light on C. S. Lewis''. Geoffrey Bles, 1965 & Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1976. ISBN 0-15-652000-1

Douglas Gilbert & Clyde Kilby, ''C. S. Lewis: Images of His World''. Eerdmans, 1973 & 2005. ISBN 0-8028-2800-0

Diana Glyer ''The Company They Keep: C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien as Writers in Community''. Kent State University Press. Kent Ohio. 2007. ISBN 9780873388900

David Graham (ed.), ''We Remember C. S. Lewis''. Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2001. ISBN 0805422994

Roger Lancelyn Green & Walter Hooper, ''C. S. Lewis: A Biography''. Fully revised & expanded edition. HarperCollins, 2002. ISBN 0-00-628164-8

Douglas Gresham, ''Jack's Life: A Memory of C. S. Lewis''. Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2005. ISBN 0-8054-3246-9

Douglas Gresham, ''Lenten Lands: My Childhood with Joy Davidman and C. S. Lewis''. HarperSanFrancisco, 1994. ISBN 0-06-063447-2

William Griffin, ''C. S. Lewis: The Authentic Voice'' (formerly ''C. S. Lewis: A Dramatic Life''). Lion, 2005. ISBN 0-7459-5208-9

Dabney Adams Hart, ''Through the Open Door: A New Look at C. S. Lewis''. University of Alabama Press, 1984. ISBN 0-8173-0187-9

Joel D. Heck, ''Irrigating Deserts: C. S. Lewis on Education''. Concordia Publishing House, 2006. ISBN 0-7586-0044-5

David Hein, "A Note on C. S. Lewis's ''The Screwtape Letters''", ''The Anglican Digest'' 49.2 (Easter 2007), 55–58. Argues that Lewis's portrayal of the activity of the Devil was influenced by contemporary events — in particular, by the threat of a Nazi invasion of Britain in 1940.

David Hein and Edward Henderson (ed.), ''C. S. Lewis and Friends: Faith and the Power of Imagination''. London: SPCK, 2011. Discusses Lewis, Austin Farrer, Rose Macaulay, Charles Williams, J. R. R. Tolkien, and Dorothy L. Sayers. Contributors include Peter Schakel, Ann Loades, Ralph Wood, Charles Hefling, and the editors. Foreword by David Brown.

David Hein and Edward Hugh Henderson (ed.), ''Captured by the Crucified: The Practical Theology of Austin Farrer''. New York and London: T&T Clark / Continuum, 2004. A study of Lewis's close friend the theologian Austin Farrer, this book also contains material on Farrer's circle, "the Oxford Christians", including C. S. Lewis.

Walter Hooper, ''C. S. Lewis: A Companion and Guide''. HarperCollins, 1996. ISBN 0006278000

Walter Hooper, ''Through Joy and Beyond: A Pictorial Biography of C. S. Lewis''. Macmillan, 1982. ISBN 0025536702

Alan Jacobs, ''The Narnian: The Life and Imagination of C. S. Lewis''. HarperSanFrancisco, 2005. ISBN 0060766905

Carolyn Keefe, ''C. S. Lewis: Speaker & Teacher''. Zondervan, 1979. ISBN 0-310-26781-1

Jon Kennedy, ''The Everything Guide to C.S. Lewis and Narnia''. Adams Media, 2008. ISBN 0-1-59869-427-8

Clyde S. Kilby, ''The Christian World of C. S. Lewis''. Eerdmans, 1964, 1995. ISBN 0-8028-0871-9

Don W. King, ''C. S. Lewis, Poet: The Legacy of His Poetic Impulse''. Kent State University Press, 2001. ISBN 0-87338-681-7

W.H. Lewis (ed.), ''Letters of C. S. Lewis''. Geoffrey Bles, 1966. ISBN 0-00-242457-6. (Followed in 1988 by an expanded version edited by Walter Hooper, Fount Paperbacks, ISBN 0006273297.)

Kathryn Lindskoog, ''Light in the Shadowlands: Protecting the Real C. S. Lewis''. Multnomah Pub., 1994. ISBN 0-88070-695-3

Susan Lowenberg, ''C. S. Lewis: A Reference Guide 1972–1988''. Hall & Co., 1993. ISBN 0-8161-1846-9

Wayne Mardindale & Jerry Root, ''The Quotable Lewis''. Tyndale House Publishers, 1990. ISBN 0-8423-5115-9

David Mills (editor) (ed), ''The Pilgrim's Guide: C. S. Lewis and the Art of Witness''. Eerdmans, 1998 ISBN 0-8208-3777-8

Thomas L. Martin (ed.), ''Reading the Classics with C. S. Lewis''. Baker Academic, 2000. ISBN 1-84227-0737

Markus Mühling, ''A Theological Journey into Narnia: An Analysis of the Message beneath the Text'', Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2005, ISBN 3525604238

Joseph Pearce, ''C. S. Lewis and the Catholic Church''. HarperCollins, 1999; then Ignatius Press, 2003. ISBN 0-89870-979-2

Thomas C. Peters, ''Simply C. S. Lewis. A Beginner's Guide to His Life and Works''. Kingsway Publications, 1998. ISBN 0-85476-762-2

Justin Phillips, ''C. S. Lewis at the BBC: Messages of Hope in the Darkness of War''. Marshall Pickering, 2003. ISBN 0-00-710437-5

Harry Lee Poe & Rebecca Whitten Poe (ed.), ''C. S. Lewis Remembered: Collected Reflections of Students, Friends & Colleagues''. Zondervan, 2006. ISBN 978-0-310-26509-2

Victor Reppert, ''C. S. Lewis's Dangerous Idea: In Defense of the Argument from Reason''. InterVarsity Press, 2003. ISBN 0-8308-2732-3

George Sayer, ''Jack: C. S. Lewis and His Times''. Macmillan, 1988. ISBN 0-333-43362-9

Peter J. Schakel, ''Imagination and the Arts in C. S. Lewis: Journeying to Narnia and Other Worlds.'' University of Missouri Press, 2002. ISBN 082621407X

Peter J. Schakel. ''Reason and Imagination in C. S. Lewis: A Study of "Till We Have Faces."'' Available online. Eerdmans, 1984. ISBN 0802819982

Peter J. Schakel (ed.), ''The Longing for a Form: Essays on the Fiction of C. S. Lewis''. Kent State University Press, 1977. ISBN 0873382048

Peter J. Schakel and Charles A. Huttar (ed.), ''Word and Story in C. S. Lewis'.' University of Missouri Press, 1991. ISBN 082620760X

Stephen Schofield. ''In Search of C. S. Lewis''. Bridge Logos Pub. 1983. ISBN 0-88270-544-X

Jeffrey D. Schultz and John G. West, Jr. (eds.), ''The C. S. Lewis Readers' Encyclopedia''. Zondervan Publishing House, 1998. ISBN 0310215382

Sanford Schwartz, ''C. S. Lewis on the Final Frontier: Science and the Supernatural in the Space Trilogy''. Oxford University Press, 2009. ISBN 9780195374728.

G. B. Tennyson (ed.), ''Owen Barfield on C. S. Lewis''. Wesleyan University Press, 1989. ISBN 0-8195-5233-X.

Richard J. Wagner. ''C. S. Lewis and Narnia for Dummies''. For Dummies, 2005. ISBN 0-7645-8381-6

Andrew Walker, Patrick James (ed.), ''Rumours of Heaven: Essays in Celebration of C. S. Lewis'', Guildford: Eagle, 1998, ISBN 0863472508

Chad Walsh, ''C. S. Lewis: Apostle to the Skeptics''. Macmillan, 1949.

Chad Walsh, ''The Literary Legacy of C. S. Lewis''. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1979. ISBN 0-15-652785-5.

Michael Ward, ''Planet Narnia''. Oxford University Press, 2008. ISBN 978-0-19-531387-1.

George Watson (ed.), ''Critical Essays on C. S. Lewis''. Scolar Press, 1992. ISBN 0-85967-853-9

Michael White, ''C. S. Lewis: The Boy Who Chronicled Narnia''. Abacus, 2005. ISBN 0-349-11625-3

Erik J. Wielenberg, ''God and the Reach of Reason''. Cambridge University Press, 2007. ISBN 978-0-521-70710-7

A. N. Wilson, ''C. S. Lewis: A Biography''. W. W. Norton, 1990. ISBN 0-393-32340-4

Notes

References

Fiddes, Paul (1990), 'C.S. Lewis the myth-maker', in Andrew Walker and James Patrick, ''A Christian for all Christians: essays in honour of C.S. Lewis'' (London: Hodder & Stoughton), pp. 132–55 [reprinted as ''Rumours of Heaven: essays in celebration of C.S. Lewis'' (Guildford: Eagle, 1998)]

External links

Journal of Inklings Studies – British academic journal on C. S. Lewis and his circle

C. S. Lewis Society of California

C. S. Lewis Review

Rare photos of the youthful C.S. Lewis, with his family

Works and archive

The Center for the Study of C.S. Lewis & Friends at Taylor University, Upland, Indiana, Lewis archive.

C.S. Lewis Reading Room, with extensive links to online primary and secondary literature (Tyndale Seminary)

De Descriptione Temporum – Lewis' inaugural Lecture as Chair of Mediaeval and Renaissance Literature at Cambridge University

Open Directory entry for C. S. Lewis

Audio

Lewis on The George MacDonald Informational Web Has an excerpt of Lewis talking about friend and fellow author: Charles Williams, bottom of page

Lewis's Surviving Broadcast Talks on the BBC BBC page on Lewis with original audio recordings.

Complete text and audio of C. S. Lewis's BBC Radio Broadcast 'Beyond Personality – Mere Men'

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