Lewis, C(live) S(taples)

(British, 1898–1963)

The best known of C. S. Lewis's fiction is his seven-volume sequence for children, The Chronicles of Narnia, begun with The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (1950). These are (with one exception) ‘gateway’ stories in which modern children find themselves in a fantasy world of talking animals, ruled by the divine lion, Aslan. Lewis is surprisingly successful in blending overt morality with romantic or fairy-tale adventure. Lewis also wrote an adult trilogy, which began as science fiction, with travels to Mars and Venus, but ended as fantasy, with the revival of Merlin to thwart a plan of world domination in That Hideous Strength (1945). The sequence is held together by Lewis's attempt to reconcile traditional Christian teaching about the Fall and the Devil with modern scientific knowledge. Lewis's last work of fiction was Till We Have Faces (1956), a retelling of the myth of Cupid and Psyche.

Alan Garner, Diana Wynne Jones.

See FANTASY  TS