Today marks the 50th anniversary of C.S. Lewis’s passing, the same day that President John F. Kennedy and writer Aldous Huxley died. Although Lewis’s demise was overshadowed by Kennedy’s tragic death and Lewis himself believed that his works would soon be forgotten, Lewis’s influence continues even today, his works growing in popularity with each passing year.
The 50th anniversary of C.S. Lewis’s death has even more significance as Lewis will be honored with a memorial in Poets’ Corner at Westminster Abbey this evening. A two-day conference and a special service at Westminster Abbey (plus events in both Oxford and Cambridge) will also take place this weekend to commemorate this momentous occasion. Many interesting articles regarding the memorial at Westminster Abbey, as well as Lewis’s enduring legacy in general, can be found at publications such as The Christian Science Monitor, The Guardian, and The Daily Beast.
One of the reasons C.S. Lewis’s influence continues to rise was his ability to write successfully in a range of genres. Who else has been able to so successfully write and lecture about topics as seemingly divergent as science fiction, children’s fantasy fiction, scholarly nonfiction, and Christian nonfiction? If often amazes people that the writer of the Narnia series is the same person as the author of Mere Christianity and The Screwtape Letters, and the scholar who wrote Preface to Paradise Lost and The Discarded Image.
In “Living the Legacy” of C.S. Lewis, we at the Foundation don’t seek to idolize the man or merely to memorialize him, but rather we see Lewis as a model of someone who lived as a Christian in higher education and who used his imagination and intellect in the service of Christ.
Whether it’s the planned C.S. Lewis College, the programs of The Study Centre at The Kilns (Lewis’s beloved home), or our conferences/retreats, we at the C.S. Lewis Foundation seek to infuse faith, creativity, and scholarship into all of our programs. We invite you to explore the ways you can do the same in your own life.
Our third and final conference that continues in the 50th Anniversary Celebration of C.S. Lewis will take place July 21-31, 2014 in both Oxford and Cambridge, UK. We will explore the theme “Reclaiming the Virtues: Human Flourishing in the 21st Century” with renowned scholars from the arts and sciences, leaders in ministry and the major professions, and an array of literary, visual, and performing artists. For more information and to register, please visit the C.S. Lewis Summer Institute webpage. We hope to see you there!
I loved CS Lewis…perhaps someone could help me. Many years ago I read a book that had excerpts from letters that he and Joy wrote to each other…it was written by someone else. It showed his tentativeness with falling in love and then walked us through their “courtship” and her illness….it was a marvelous story but I cannot find the book anymore and have no idea who wrote it. I picked up Surprised by Joy thinking that might be it but alas, it wasn’t
I have loved many of C.S. Lewis’ books over the years. The first one I ever read was “Out of the Silent Planet”, which I loved. Then I quickly read the other two books in the Space Trilogy which “blew me out of the water”. Later on I read The Screwtape Letters and the Narnia Chronicles. Loved them all. He has influenced more people in the 50 years since his passing, than Aldous Huxley or JFK. I thank GOD for the many hours spent reading his written legacy.
Nancy,
The book you are looking for may be “Joy and C.S. Lewis: The Story of an Extraordinary Marriage”, by Lyle W. Dorsett.
Nancy, there is also a book titled, “C.S. Lewis Through the Shadowlands: the Story of his Life with Joy Davidman” by Brian Sibley.