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Lewis’s occasional eccentricities and inconsistencies of spelling have been retained.
James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson, 7 May 1773 (1791).
Reginald Walter Macan (1848–1941), the Master of University College.
He was in set number 5 on staircase 12 of the Radcliffe Quad. Most of the rooms in this quad were occupied by the wounded.
John Clifford Valentine Behan (1881–1957) was the Dean 1914–17. He was the first Rhodes Scholar to come from the State of Victoria, Australia, and he was made a Fellow of Law at University College in 1909. Jack’s tutor was Arthur Blackburne Poynton (1876–1944). He was the Master of University College 1935–37.
Jack had failed algebra in his Responsions in March. Shortly after this letter was written he began tutorials in this subject with Mr John Edward Campbell (1862–1924) of Hertford College.
‘Jo’, as everyone called this college scout, was Cyril Haggis.
Joseph Ernest Renan, La Vie de Jésus (1863).
H. G. Wells, God the Invisible King (1917).
John Robert Edwards (1897–) became a teacher after leaving Oxford. He was the Headmaster of the Liverpool Institute High School from 1935 until his retirement in 1961.
Charlotte Rose Rachael (‘Cherry’) Robbins (1888–1978), Lewis’s cousin, was with the Voluntary Aid Detachment at a military hospital in Oxford.
This group of friends, all born in 1898, were: Martin Ashworth Somerville, ‘Paddy’ Moore, Alexander Gordon Sutton and Denis Howard de Pass of Repton School, and Thomas Kerrison Davey of Charterhouse School. The ‘Sinn Fein’ friend was Theobald Richard Fitzwalter Butler (1894–1976) who had just taken his final examinations. He was to achieve great distinction as a lawyer.
Jack was deeply impressed at this time by the ‘Subjective Idealism’ of Bishop George Berkeley (1685–1753) as propounded in his Principles of Human Knowledge (1710). The Bishop held that when we affirm material things to be real, we mean no more than that they are perceived. What annoyed Jack about ‘the ogre in Boswell’ was the famous remark of Dr Johnson’s recorded in Boswell’s Life of Samuel Johnson. On 6 August 1763 Boswell wrote: ‘After we came out of the church, we stood talking for some time together of Bishop Berkeley’s ingenious sophistry to prove the non-existence of matter, and that every thing in the universe is merely ideal. I observed, that though we are satisfied his doctrine is not true, it is impossible to refute it. I never shall forget the alacrity with which Johnson answered, striking his foot with mighty force against a large stone, till he rebounded from it, “I refute it thus.”’ As Bishop Berkeley never met Dr Johnson, he had no chance of ‘standing up’ to him. Jack has confused the Bishop with his son, who was also named George. This George (1733–95) met Dr Johnson shortly after he came up to Oxford in 1752, and when Dr Johnson made fun of the Bishop’s abortive scheme for a missionary college in Bermuda the young George walked out of the room. He subsequently refused Dr Johnson’s repeated requests for permission to write a ‘Life of Bishop Berkeley.’
He must have misunderstood the name. There was no don named ‘Goddard’ at Trinity College in 1917.
Benjamin Jowett (1817–93) was the Master of Balliol College 1870–93). He was ordained a priest in 1845 but his theological liberalism, particularly evident in his essay ‘The Interpretation of Scripture’, was hotly debated. Jowett’s classical learning was, however, almost unrivalled during his years in Oxford. He was an Oxford figure and the subject of innumerable stories.
Algernon Charles Swinburne, Note on Charlotte Bronte (1877); William Blake (1868).
Mrs Jane (‘Janie’) King Moore was born in Dunany, Co. Armagh, in 1872, the eldest of the three daughters and two sons of the Revd William James Askins (1842–95) and his wife Jane King Askins (1846–90). Mrs Moore’s father was the Vicar of Dunany 1872–95, and in 1894 he was made Prebendary of Ballymore. In 1898 Janie married Courtenay Edward Moore (1870) from whom she had two children, ‘Paddy’ (b. 1898) and Maureen (b. 1906) who is now the baronetess, Lady Dunbar of Hempriggs. When Jack met the Moores in June of 1917, Mrs Moore had been separated from her husband for some time, and she had come to Oxford from her home in Bristol to see as much as she could of ‘Paddy’ before he left for the Front.
A colloquial term for Responsions.
On 25 September Jack was gazetted into the 3rd Somerset Light Infantry and given a month’s leave. It would appear from the next letter that he went with the Moores to their home in Bristol on Saturday 29 September.
‘Who far from here before day .�.�.’
The proofs were of photographs of Mr Lewis taken with his sons. On Friday 16 November Jack sent the following telegraph to his father: ‘Orders France. Reporting Southampton 4 p.m. Saty. If coming, wire immediately. No need alarm. Shall be at base. Jack.’ Jack Lewis, having been commissioned a 2nd Lieutenant, was suddenly transferred from the 3rd to the 1st Battalion of the Somerset Light Infantry and he crossed to France on 17 November.
Vivian Henry Bruce Majendie (1886–1960) had been educated at Winchester College and Sandhurst. As Commander of the Ist Battalion of the Somerset Light Infantry he was eminently suited for writing A History of the 1st Battalion, the Somerset Light Infantry (Prince Albert’s) July Ist 1916 to the end of the War (1921). He ended his long and useful career in the Army as a Major-General, and he retired in 1946.
By George Eliot (1859).
By George Eliot (1860).
‘Alas! How the years fly by!’ He and Warren had gone on holiday with their mother at Berneval, near Dieppe, in September 1907.
This meeting of the extremely colourful Harris again after five years is worthy of a footnote in red ink. While I can understand Jack’s disenchantment with this man at this time, I have discovered enough about Percy Gerald Kelsal Harris to cause me to like him very much. He is the master at Cherbourg House whom Jack refers to as ‘Pogo’ in Surprised by Joy (ch. IV). Of his arrival at the school in May 1912, Jack wrote: ‘“Sirrah”, as we called him .�.�. was succeeded by a young gentleman just down from the University whom we may call Pogo. Pogo was a very minor edition of a Saki, perhaps even a Wodehouse hero. Pogo was a wit, Pogo was a dressy man, Pogo was a man about town. Pogo was even a lad. After a week or so of hesitation (for his temper was uncertain) we fell at his feet and adored. Here was sophistication, glossy all over, and (dared one believe it?) ready to impart sophistication to us .�.�. After a term of Pogo’s society one had the feeling of being not twelve weeks but twelve years older.’
P. G. K. Harris was born in Kinver, Staffordshire, on 31 August 1888. From King’s School in Taunton he went up to Exeter College in 1907. That he left Oxford without taking a degree may be explained by those very qualities which delighted his pupils at Cherbourg House. He was commissioned a Lieutenant in the Somerset Light Infantry in February 1915, and had been promoted to Captain by the time Jack was assigned to his command. If Harris wasted his time in Oxford and made a flashy but poor showing at Cherbourg, he cuts an heroic and dashing figure in Everard Wyrall’s official History of the Somerset Light Infantry (Prince Albert’s) 1914–1919 (1927). Wyrall describes the bravery at Verchain which caused Harris to receive the Military Cross with this Citation: ‘For conspicuous gallantry near Verchain on 24 October 1918. At the river bank, in the darkness, considerable confusion and difficulty were experienced in throwing the bridges, owing to the heavy machine-gun fire. It was entirely due to his example and efforts that the bridges were thrown and that the men were able to cross. He subsequently led his company to a further objective, and carried out a personal reconnais-sance across the open under heavy machine-gun fire, obtaining very valuable information.’ A bar was added to that Cross as a result of Harris’s gallantry at Preseau on 1 November 1918. Wyrall wrote of it: ‘“Preseau”—it was here that the 1st Somerset Light Infantry ended its glorious record of fighting in the Great War .�.�. Assisted by Company Sergeant-Major R. Johnson, Captain P. G. K. Harris rallied his men and ordered them to charge. The whole line sprang forward with a cheer and, with the bayonet, flung the Germans back’ (p. 356).
It is, however, in Lt Col. Majendie’s History of the 1st Battalion, the Somerset Light Infantry that the Cherbourg ‘Pogo’ of uncertain temper is seen as a man, not less glossy perhaps, but far more admirable than the one Jack remembered. ‘During the clearing of Preseau,’ wrote Lt Col. Majendie, ‘Captain P. G. K. Harris, M.C., was the chief performer in an incident which gave rise to some merriment. He was standing at the top of some cellar steps collecting prisoners, when a German came up from below “kamerading” with such enthusiasm that he collided with Captain Harris and knocked him down. Captain Harris sat down violently on top of a dead German, and in his efforts to rise put his hand on the dead man’s face. This was too much for Light Company’s Commander; he leapt at the offender and, mindful of his Oxford days, caught him such a left under the jaw that the unhappy German did not recover consciousness for a long time’ (p. 120).
By John Habberton (1877).
The ‘Colonel’ referred to here is Warren. He had been trying to prevent Mr Lewis from worrying so much about Jack, and in writing to his father on 9 February 1918 he said: ‘I wish Papy that I could convince you that your depression is almost entirely due to your solitary life: Jacks is very seldom from my thoughts now, but still I am for some reason convinced that all will be well with him. Surely you are giving way to mere pessimism when you say that you can see no early end to the war .�.�. It is a pity you never played poker or you would appreciate the situation better: the Bosche holds a fairish hand, but not so good as ours: unfortunately for him however, he is so badly dipped that he CANNOT afford to pay up and drop it: therefore he is naturally bluffing all he can in the hope of frightening us out.’
John Stuart Mill, The Subjection of Women (1869).
Mrs Lily Hamilton Suffern (1860–1934) was the sister of Jack’s and Warren’s mother. Warren described her as ‘an ardent suffragette’ who had quarrelled with everyone in her family, including his parents. Although the lady was constantly on the move, she was especially fond of Jack whom she bombarded with books and a pseudo-metaphysical correspondence.
The story of ‘Paddy’s’ part in the war was summarized, from information supplied by Mrs Moore, in his school magazine The Cliftonian, No. CCXCV (May 1918), p. 225: ‘2nd-Lieutenant E. F. C. Moore. He joined the Rifle Brigade after the usual training, and was in action in France in the great German attack which began on March 21. He was reported missing on March 24, and it is now feared that he cannot have escaped with his life. The Adjutant of his battalion writes: “I have to tell you that your very gallant son was reported missing on the 24th of last month. He was last seen on the morning of that day with a few men defending a position on a river bank against infinitely superior numbers of the enemy. All the other officers and most of the men of his company have become casualties, and I fear it is impossible to obtain more definite information. He did really fine work on the previous night in beating off a party of Germans who had succeeded in rushing a bridgehead in our lines. We all feel his loss very deeply, and I cannot express too strongly our sympathy with you.”’
Warren wrote to his father on 7 June saying: ‘It is splendid to know that our ‘IT’ [Jack] is safely home at last. I confess it made me very uneasy when I heard that those damned hounds had been bombing base hospitals. And talking about that, did you see that the fellow who was caught red handed was admitted into the hospital he had bombed, and had his wound treated. I’d have given him treatment forsooth.’
This occurred the day before Jack was wounded. Wyrall records in his History of the Somerset Light Infantry (p. 293) the taking of 135 prisoners: ‘As the leading Somerset men approached the eastern exits of Riez, the enemy launched a counter-attack from east of the village and the northern end of the Bois de Pacaut. This counter-attack was at once engaged with Lewis-gun and rifle fire and about 50 per cent of the attacking German were shot down: of the remainder about half ran away and the other half ran towards the Somerset men with their hands in the air crying out “Kamerad!” and were made prisoners.’
This was probably The Collected Works of William Butler Yeats in Verse and Prose in 8 volumes, published in 1908 by the Shakespeare Head Press.
Aubrey Vincent Beardsley (1872–98).
‘I too have lived in Arcadia.’
Frank Winter Perrett (1898–) had known Jack at Malvern College where he had been a pupil 1912–15. He, too, had served with the 1st Battalion of the Somerset Light Infantry and he was wounded on 29 March 1918.
Richard Burton’s The Anatomy of Melancholy was published in 1621. Jack’s copy is one brought out by Chatto & Windus in 1907 and some of its many annotations were probably made at Ashton Court.
‘It seemed otherwise to the gods.’ Laurence Bertrand Johnson was elected a Scholar of Queens’ College, Oxford, in 1917 but he was sent to the Front with the Somerset Light Infantry before he could matriculate. Jack says of Johnson in Surprised by Joy (ch. XII): ‘In him I found dialectical sharpness such as I had hitherto known only in Kirk, but coupled with youth and whim and poetry. He was moving toward Theism and we had endless arguments on this and every other topic whenever we were out of the line.’ Johnson was killed by the shell which wounded Jack.
Mr Lewis was trying to get Jack into the Ulster Volunteer Force, hoping this way to get him transferred to Ireland.
The mythical friend of Mrs Gamp in Charles Dickens’s Martin Chuzzlewit (1843–44).
Robert Hichens, A Spirit in Prison (1908).
Alfred, Lord Tennyson, In Memoriam A. H. H. (1850).
For a detailed account of the Second Battalion of the Rifle Brigade with which Paddy Moore served see William W. Seymour, The History of The Rifle Brigade in The War of 1914–1918, Vol. II (1936).
Those who made up ‘the old set’ are mentioned in Jack’s letter of 10 (?) June 1917. Paddy Moore died at Pargny in March 1918. Martin Ashworth Somerville, also of the Rifle Brigade, served in Egypt and Palestine and he was killed in Palestine on 21 September 1918. Alexander Gordon Sutton, who was with Paddy in the 2nd Battalion of the Rifle Brigade, was killed in action on 2 January 1918. Thomas Kerrison Davey, of the 1st Battalion of the Rifle Brigade, died of wounds received near Arras on 29 March 1918. Jack assumed that Denis Howard de Pass—‘our regnant authority on all matters of dress, who is reported to wear stays’—had died as well. He was reported ‘wounded and missing’ on 1 April 1918. As it turned out, de Pass of the 12th Battalion of the Rifle Brigade, had been taken prisoner by the Germans. Following his repatriation in December 1918 he not only continued to serve in the First World War but he fought in the Second as well. From 1950 until his death in 1973 this once fashionable dresser was a dairy farmer at Polegate in Sussex.
1 Peter 3:19.
William Heinemann (1863–1920) had founded the publishing house which still bears his name in 1890. His manager at this time was Charles Sheldon Evans (1883–1944). The meeting took place in 20–21 Bedford Street, London.
‘Squeaky Dick’, as Richard Whytock Leslie, M.D. (1862–1931) was known to many, was the Lewis family doctor.
The Master of University College, R. W. Macan.
Gilbert Murray (1866–1957) was Regius Professor of Greek at Oxford 1908–36. His translations of Greek plays are as notable as his interpretation of Greek ideas.
The Martlets somehow acquired the reputation of dating ‘from dim antiquity’ but their first meeting was in 1892. The Minute Books are in the Bodleian under the shelfmark MS. Top Oxon. d. 95/1–5. There is an article on ‘The Martlets’ by P. C. Bayley in the University College Record (1949–50). My essay called ‘To the Martlets’ in C. S. Lewis: Speaker and Teacher, ed. Carolyn Keefe (1971), contains the minutes of the papers Jack read to the Martlets between 1919 and 1940.
‘Smugy’ or ‘Smewgy’ was Harry Wakelyn Smith (1861–1918) who taught Classics and English to the Upper Fifth at Malvern College. In the tribute paid him in Surprised by Joy Jack speaks of this teacher as good ‘beyond expectation, beyond hope’.
The book is Spirits in Bondage: A Cycle of Lyrics which was published on 20 March 1919 under the pseudonym ‘Clive Hamilton’. Mr Lewis and Warren had read the manuscript of it, and on 28 January Warren wrote to his father saying: ‘While I am in complete agreement with you as to the excellence of parts of ‘IT’S’ book, I am of opinion that it would have been better if it had never been published. Even at 23 one realizes that the opinions and convictions of 20 are transient things. Jack’s Atheism is I am sure purely academic, but even so, no useful purpose is served by endeavouring to advertise oneself as an atheist. Setting aside the higher problems involved, it is obvious that a profession of a Christian belief is as necessary a part of a man’s mental make up as a belief in the King, the Regular Army, and the Public Schools.’ Spirits in Bondage was reprinted under Lewis’s name in the United States by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich in 1984.
‘Death in Battle’ from Spirits in Bondage appeared in Reveille, No. 3 (February 1919).
Warren, still stationed in France, was probably looking for the whole of the Duc de Saint-Simon’s Mémoires. In later years he was to write six books on Louis XIV and the Grand Siècle. So memorable was his discovery of Saint-Simon that forty-five years later he told me he could still recall buying an abridgement of the Mémoires at St Omer on 3 March 1919.
Memoirs of Count Grammont, ed. Gordon Goodwin (1903).
The Times Literary Supplement (27 March 1919), p. 167: ‘These lyrics are always graceful and polished, and their themes are chosen from those which naturally attract poets—The Autumn Morning, Oxford, Lullaby, The Witch, Milton Read Again, and so on. The Thought, when closed with, is found often not to rise above the commonplace .�.�.’
‘I have seen the so great Vergil!’
This was Sir William Quartus Ewart (b. 1844) who died on 17 October. His wife, Lady Ewart, was first cousin to Jack’s mother. Their home, ‘Glenmachan’, was very near “Little Lea” and there is a pleasing picture of the Ewarts and their children in the chapter of Surprised by Joy entitled ‘Mountbracken and Campbell’—‘Mountbracken’ being a ficticious name for Glenmachan.
By George Borrow (1851).
Jack was hiding a good deal from his father. He was in Somerset, not with a male friend, but with Mrs Moore and Maureen. Since Mrs Moore and Maureen had moved to Oxford in January 1919 they had lived in four different places. They had gone for a month’s holiday with Jack in Somerset because of a disagreement with the landlady, Mrs John Jeffrey, from whom they had been renting a flat over what was then, and still is, a butcher’s shop in 58 Windmill Road. Having spent a year in college, Jack was allowed to live in rooms approved by the University. Upon their return to Oxford at the beginning of May, Jack went to live with the Moores in ‘Court Field Cottage’ in 131 Osler Road, Headington.
By Sir Walter Scott (1814).
‘Oldie’ was the nickname of Robert Capron (1851–1911), a native of Devon and the Headmaster of Wynyard School. Wynyard is the dreadful school referred to in Surprised by Joy as ‘Belsen’.
His tutor in History was George Hope Stevenson (1880–1952) who, after taking a B.A. in 1904 as a member of Balliol, was Fellow and Praelector in Ancient History at University College 1906–49. Jack’s tutor in Philosophy was Edgar Frederick Carritt (1876–1964). Following his undergraduate years at Hertford College he was elected Fellow and Praelector in Philosophy at Univ. in 1898.
This volume of poems was to be published by Basil Blackwell. It turned out, however, that the poets themselves would have to raise the money for having it printed. As this was impossible the project had to be abandoned.
The relatives were Jack’s maternal uncle, Augustus Warren Hamilton (1866–1945), and his much-loved Canadian wife, Anne Sargent Harley Hamilton (1866–1930).
Warren, unable to afford a car, bought a motorcycle with a sidecar instead. He and Jack went to Belfast on it, arriving there on 26 August. They were with their father until 23 September.
Jack had been elected President of the Martlets on 15 October 1919 and he was prevailed upon to retain the position until 13 June 1921. The paper which he read in Cambridge on ‘Narrative Poetry’ was read to the Oxford Martlets on 3 November 1920. The paper has not survived, but the minutes written about it are reproduced in my essay ‘To the Martlets’, op. cit., pp. 44–45.
On 15 December Warren was granted a leave of absence until his departure from Sierra Leone. He and Jack arrived in Belfast together on 24 December. Jack returned to Oxford on 13 January. Warren, however, remained with his father until 8 March. He sailed for Sierra Leone the next day.
Paul Victor Mendelssohn Beneke (1868–1944) was the great-grandson of the composer Felix Mendelssohn. He became a Fellow of Magdalen College in 1893 and taught Classics until his retirement in 1925. He lived in Magdalen (with his vast collection of pigs) for the rest of his life. Lewis’s reminiscences of Beneke can be found in Margaret Denecke’s Paul Victor Mendelssohn Beneke (1868–1944) (Oxford [1954]), pp. 31–34.
The Rev. Alexander James Carlyle (1861–1943) was the Chaplain of University College. He was an undergraduate at Exeter College, and following his appointment as Chaplain of Univ. in 1893 he became an active member of the Martlets.
The Lewis brothers were enthusiastic nicknamers. Since boyhood they had been amused by their father’s ‘low’ Irish pronunciation of ‘potatoes’ as ‘p’daytas’. As a result, he became ‘The P’dayta’ or ‘The P’daytabird’—and now, with Warren in Sierre Leone, ‘Monsieur L’Oiseau Pomme de Terre’. The brothers had nicknames for one another as well. When I observed Jack addressing his brother in letters as ‘APB’ and being addressed by Warren as ‘SPB’ I asked what the initials meant. He told me that when they were very young their nurse, Lizzie Endicott, when drying them after a bath, threatened to smack their ‘piggiebottoms’. In time the brothers decided that Warren was the ‘Archpiggiebotham’ and Jack the ‘Smallpiggiebotham’.
Alfred Kenneth Hamilton Jenkin (1900–80) matriculated at Univ. in 1919 and after completing his B.A. he took a B.Litt. degree. The Cornish Mines (1927) was the first of his many interesting books on Cornwall.
Although the passages are slightly misquoted they come from Richard Carew’s The Survey of Cornwall (1602), p. 22.
Sir Rodney Marshall Sabine Pasley (1899–1982), who succeeded to a Baronetcy in 1947, took his B.A. from University College in 1921. His first position was as a Master at Alleyn’s School, 1921–25; then Vice-Principal of Rajkumar College at Rajkot, India, 1926–28. He was the Headmaster of Barnstaple Grammar School 1936–43 and the Headmaster of Central Grammar School, Birmingham from 1943 until his retirement in 1959. When Jack wrote this letter Pasley was engaged to Miss Aldyth Werge Hamber.
William Force Stead (1884–1967) was born in Washington, D.C., and attended the University of Virginia before coming to England. He was ordained a priest in the Church of England in 1917 and he became a member of Queen’s College, Oxford, in 1921. After taking his degree in 1925 he served as the Chaplain of Worcester College from 1917 to 1933. Besides publishing a great many poems, he knew many famous poets. He baptized his friend T. S. Eliot in 1927.
Mrs Stead’s sister, the former Mary Goldsworthy, was married to Dr John Hawkins Askins (1877–1923). The Askins were living just outside Oxford in the village of Iffley.
Father Cyril Charles Martindale SJ (1879–1963) was a member of Campion Hall and he lectured in the faculty of Literae Humaniores. He wrote as both a scholar and a popular apologist.
Mr William T. Kirkpatrick, who was born in 1848, died on 22 March 1921. He became the Headmaster of Lurgan College in Lurgan, Co. Armagh, shortly after its founding by Samuel Watts in 1874. It was during his twenty-five years as Headmaster that Albert Lewis became one of his pupils. In 1900 he moved with his wife, Louise, and their son, Louie, to Northenden, Cheshire, so that Louie could train as an electrical engineer in Manchester. A few years later he and Mrs Kirkpatrick moved to Great Bookham where he gave Warren and Jack, along with a few others, private tuition.
The Lewises had long known that Mr Kirkpatrick was an atheist. However, writing to Warren on 21 April, Mr Lewis told him how painful he found the arrangements for Mr Kirkpatrick’s body: ‘There was not to be a funeral—no service, no ceremony, no flowers, and he was to be cremated. My whole soul rose in revolt at the thought. The dear old man to be spirited away furtively—like an unclean thing—and burned!’
Leo Kingsley Baker (1898–1986) matriculated at Wadham College in 1917. He served as a Flight Lieutenant in the RAF and was awarded the distinguished Flying Cross in 1918. He returned to Oxford in 1919 and took his B.A. in 1922.
Dr and Mrs A. J. Carlyle lived with their family in 29 Holywell Street.
John Keats, The Fall of Hyperion, I, pp. 49–50. Slightly misquoted.
Sidney John Selby Groves (1897–1970) was ordained in 1922. He was Vicar of Sonning 1942–65 and a Canon of Christ Church.
John Henry Newman, Loss and Gain (1848).
The Encaenia is Oxford University’s annual Commemoration of founders and benefactors. This one took place on 22 June.
Georges Clemenceau (1841–1929) was the Prime Minister and Minister for War of France, 1917–20. Vice-Admiral Sir Roger Keyes (1881–1929) was Admiral of the Fleet 1920–29 and the hero of Zeebruger. The Canon of Notre-Dame de Paris was the Rt Rev. Monseigneur Pierre Batiffol (1861–1929), a distinguished Church historian.
David Garrick’s imaginary epitaph on Oliver Goldsmith.
Lord Big (a frog), Polonius Green (a parrot) and Sir Charles Arabudda (a fish) are characters from the world of ‘Boxen’ which Jack and Warren created as boys. They are still to be found in the stories Jack wrote about them and now published as Boxen: The Imaginary World of the Young C.S. Lewis, ed. Walter Hooper (London, New York, 1985).
William Patton Ker (1855–1923), Fellow of All Souls’ College, Oxford, Professor of Poetry, and Quain Professor of English Literature in London, was the author of many books on English, Scottish and Scandinavian literature.
‘Optimism’ was never published, and no copies seem to have survived.
Although Maureen was fifteen, and a pupil at Headington School, Jack continued to refer to her when writing to Warren as ‘the child’. ‘The children’ meant Maureen and one or more of her friends.
Warren was able to compare Jack’s version of this famous motor tour with that supplied by his father. Mr Lewis’s account is found in two long letters to Warren, one written in August, and the other during the weeks Jack spent at ‘Little Lea’ over the last part of September and the early weeks of October. In the second of these undated letters Mr Lewis said of their visit to Lichfield: ‘Such a city! The ugliest and dowdiest place by far we came across .�.�. And the statues of Johnson and Boswell are in a mean street. But Bozzy’s statue is a magnificent piece of work. In every feature, in the cock of the hat and the pose of the body, in every line and curve it is the man as he must have been in life.’ (Lewis Papers, vol. VII, p. 87.)
Writing to Jack on 22 November, Warren said: ‘I have by the way read your essay twice, but as on neither occasion could I make the slightest glimmer of meaning out of it, I have put it away in despair for perusal in the cold tang of a saner climate .�.�.’ Warren was to remember years later lending ‘Optimism’ to a fellow officer in Sierra Leone who, after reading it, said ‘Tell me, Lewis, strictly between ourselves, does your brother drink?’
Mrs Moore is nearly always referred to as ‘D’ in Jack’s Diary.
Arthur Owen Barfield (1898–1997) came up to Oxford in 1919 after being elected to a Classical Scholarship at Wadham College. He met Jack in 1919 through their mutual friend Leo Baker and they became life-long friends There is an engaging description of him in ch. XIII of Surprised by Joy.
Alfred Cecil Harwood (1898–1975) had known Owen Barfield since 1909. He came up to Oxford in 1919 on a Classical scholarship to Christ Church and, like his friend Barfield, had met Jack through Leo Baker. At this time he and Owen Barfield were living in ‘Bee Cottage’ in the village of Beckley. There is a portrait of him in ch. XIII of Surprised by Joy.
Herbert William Blunt (1864–1940) was Tutor in Philosophy and Librarian at Christ Church from 1888 to 1928.
University College in Reading was later to become The University of Reading. William Macbride Childs (1869–1939) was the Principal of University College, Reading, 1903–26, and the first Vice-Chancellor of the University of Reading, 1926–29. William George de Burgh (1866–1943) was Professor of Philosophy at the University of Reading, 1907–34. Eric Robertson Dodds (1893–1979) was a fellow Ulsterman and he took his B.A. from University College, Oxford, shortly after Jack arrived there in 1917. Dodds was Lecturer in Classics at University College, Reading, 1919–24, Professor of Greek in the University of Birmingham, 1924–36, and the Regius Professor of Greek in the University of Oxford, 1936–60.
Arthur Spenser Loat Farquharson (1871–1942), who had been elected a Fellow of Univ. in 1898, held the positions of Senior Tutor, Praelector in Logic, and Dean of Degrees.
Frank Percy Wilson (1889–1963) was at this time a Fellow of Exeter College and a university lecturer in English Literature. He was the Merton Professor of English Literature at Oxford from 1947 to 1957.
Henry Cecil Kennedy Wyld (1870–1945) was a Fellow of Merton College and the Merton Professor of English Literature 1920–47. One of the books used at this time for the study of English was Wyld’s A Short History of English (1921) which Jack found a very muddled piece of writing and of which he complained often.
Percy Simpson (1865–1962) had been a Lecturer in English Literature at Oxford since 1913. He was Librarian of the English School 1914–34 and a Fellow of Oriel College 1921–36.
Edith Elizabeth Wardale (1863–1943) had been educated at both Lady Margaret Hall and St Hugh’s College, Oxford, and she had been appointed a Fellow of St Hugh’s College in 1920. Jack went to her for tuition in Anglo-Saxon because there was no one in his college who taught that subject.
Charles Talbut Onions (1873–1965), lexicographer and grammarian, joined the staff of the Oxford English Dictionary in 1895. He was a lecturer in English at Oxford 1920–27 and Reader in English Philology 1927–49.
Logan Pearsall Smith (1865–1946) was born in Philadelphia but spent most of his life in England, devoting himself to a study of the English language. He taught on the English Faculty at Oxford and his many books include three volumes of Trivia (1918, 1921, 1933).
Neville Henry Kendall Aylmer Coghill (1899–1980) matriculated at Exeter College in 1919. He was a Fellow of Exeter College 1925–57 and the Merton Professor of English Literature 1957–66. See his essay ‘The Approach to English’ in Light on C. S. Lewis, ed. Jocelyn Gibb (1965).
Thomas Otway, Venice Preserv’d (1682).
Herbert Francis Brett-Smith (1884–1951) took his B.A. from Corpus Christi College in 1907. In 1922 he became a lecturer in English Literature at Pembroke College and, in time, a lecturer at a number of the other colleges of Oxford.
Dermot Macgreggor Morrah (1896–1974) took his B.A. from New College in 1921 and he was a Fellow of All Souls College 1921–28. He was a leader writer for a number of newspapers, including The Times, and he published several books on the Royal Family.
James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson, 6 April 1775 (slightly misquoted).
Harold Arthur Pritchard (1871–1937) who was lecturing on Philosophy was a Fellow of Hertford College 1895–98, a Fellow and Tutor of Trinity College 1898–1924, and White’s Professor of Moral Philosophy 1928–37.
The Autobiography of Margot Asquith (1920), vol. I, p. 118.
George Stuart Gordon (1881–1942) had been Fellow in English at Magdalen College from 1907 until he became a professor of English in Leeds. He returned to Oxford to become Merton Professor of English 1922–28 after which he was President of Magdalen College from 1928 until he died.
John Norman Bryson (1896–1976) was educated at the Queen’s University in Belfast and at Merton College, Oxford. He was a lecturer at Balliol, Merton and Oriel Colleges from 1923 to 1940, and then Fellow and Tutor in English Literature at Balliol College 1940–63.
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night, I, i, 14.
Sir Thomas Herbert Warren (1853–1930) had taken Firsts in Mods and Greats at Balliol College. He became a Fellow of Magdalen in 1877 and was President 1885–1928.
Hamlet, V, ii, 60–61.
Edward Murray Wrong (1889–1928), a scholar of Balliol, took a First Class in Modern History in 1913 and was elected a Fellow of Magdalen in 1914. He was Vice-Principal of Manchester College of Technology 1916–19 after which he returned to Magdalen.
The favourite walk of Joseph Addison (1672–1719) who had been both a pupil and a fellow at Magdalen College.
This entry gives an early glimpse of the pupil of Jack’s who became the most famous. John Betjeman (1906–85) came up to Oxford from Marlborough. He matriculated at Magdalen in 1925 and he left in December 1928 without a degree. His well-deserved fame as a poet led to a Knighthood in 1969 and he was made Poet Laureate in 1972. Deric William Valentin (1907–) was at Magdalen 1925–27. He was with Naval Intelligence 1942–44 and is living in Italy.
The Letters of Sir Walter Raleigh (1879–1922), ed. Lady Raleigh, with a Preface by D. N. Smith, 2 vols (1926).
William Francis Ross Hardie (1902–1990) read Classics at Balliol College and was a Fellow of Magdalen 1925–26, a Fellow and Tutor in Philosophy at Corpus Christi College 1926–50 and President of Corpus Christi 1950–69.
John Alexander Smith (1863–1939), who was also a Classicist, was a Fellow of Balliol from 1891 until he became Waynflete Professor of Moral and Metaphysical Philosophy 1910–36 and a Fellow of Magdalen.
Thomas Dewar Weldon (1896–1958) had served in the RAF during 1915–18. He took a B.A. from Magdalen in 1921 and he was a Fellow and Tutor in Philosophy at Magdalen from 1923–58.
The Mermaid Club was founded on 19 June 1902 ‘to promote the reading and study of the Elizabethan and post-Elizabethan drama’.
Percival Merritt, The True Story of the So-Called Love Letters of Mrs Piozzi (1927), p. 70.
The friends who met Jack in Oxford for a walk on the Berkshire Downs were Owen Barfield and Cecil Harwood. They were joined at Goring by Walter Ogilvie ‘Wof’ Field (1893–1957) who came up to Trinity College, Oxford, from Marlborough College in 1912. He left to join the Warwickshire Rifle Regiment in 1914, and in 1916, having continued his studies, he took a war degree from Trinity College. He was promoted to Captain in 1916 and after seeing action in France and Italy he was wounded and forced to retire in 1919. In 1926 he became a teacher at the Rudolf Steiner School in Forest Row, Sussex.
‘Soak’ was coined by Jack to mean sitting idle or sleepily doing nothing. By a ‘soaking machine’ he meant a place for these operations.
William Douglas Robson-Scott (1900–80) matriculated at Univ. in 1919, and in 1923 he took a First in English Literature. He became the Professor of German Language and Literature at Birkbeck College, University of London.
The Poetical Works of Armstrong, Dyer and Green, with Memoirs and Critical Dissertations by the Rev. George Gilfillan (1858), pp. 15, 16.
Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, I, ii, 139–40.
Mr Barfield was probably referring to the review of Hermann Gunkel’s What Remains of the Old Testament and Other Essays in The Times Literary Supplement (26 April 1928), p. 302.
On 17 November Magdalen College elected George Stuart Gordon its President.
The dates in this letter are confused. As Jack informed Warren by cable, Mr Lewis died on Wednesday 25 September. He was born on 22 August 1863 and, so, was a little over 66 years old.
James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791) after Dr Johnson’s death in 1784.
Mrs Moore wrote to Warren on 27 October 1929 saying, ‘I hope you will spend your leaves with us or wherever we are. We hope some day to get a larger house, when things would be more comfortable for you, so please do think of our home as your home, and be assured always of a very hearty welcome.’
Albert Lewis was the youngest of four sons. His brother Joseph had died in 1908. The other two, William and Richard, had moved to Scotland in 1883 and entered into a partnership selling rope and felt. Their business was located in Glasgow, but they lived some fifteen miles away at Helensburgh.
Coventry Patmore (1823–96).
Henry Victor Dyson (‘Hugo’) Dyson (1896–1975) was an undergraduate at Exeter College and took his B.A. in 1921. He was a Lecturer and Tutor in English Literature at the University of Reading 1921–45, and a Fellow and Tutor of Merton College 1945–63. For more about this charming member of ‘The Inklings’ see Surprised by Joy and Humphrey Carpenter’s The Inklings (1978).
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (1892–1973) is as famous as he deserves to be. However, it may not be amiss to mention that when he and Jack met in 1926 he was already the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford. He ‘changed chairs’ to become the Merton Professor of English Language and Literature in 1945. See Surprised by Joy and Humphrey Carpenter’s J. R. R. Tolkien: A Biography (1977).
Kenneth Bruce McFarlane (1903–66) took his B.A. from Exeter College in 1925 and was Tutor in Modern History at Magdalen College 1927–66.
Alan Richard Griffiths (now Dom Bede Griffiths, O.S.B.) was born in 1906 and read English under Jack at Magdalen. In Surprised by Joy (ch. XV) Jack speaks of him as his ‘chief companion’ on the road to Christianity. Dom Bede has told his own story of their friendship in The Golden String (1954).
The Rev. Adam Fox (1883–1977) took his B.A. from University College in 1906 and was ordained a priest in 1911. He was Dean of Divinity at Magdalen College 1929–42, Professor of Poetry 1938–43, and a Canon of Westminster 1942–63.
John Traill Christie (1899–1980) was a Fellow and Classical Tutor of Magdalen 1928–32, Headmaster of Repton School 1932–37, Headmaster of Westminster School 1937–49, and Principal of Jesus College, Oxford, 1950–67.
Frederick Chesney Horwood (1904–) matriculated at St Catherine’s College in 1922 and took his B.A. in 1925. He was a Fellow and Tutor in English at St Catherine’s College 1930–70.
The Rev. Wilfrid Savage Thomas (1879–1959) was the Vicar of the Church of the Holy and Undivided Trinity, Headington Quarry, which is about half a mile from The Kilns. Father Thomas took a B.A. from Pembroke College, Cambridge, in 1900. Following his ordination in 1903 he held a number of livings in England and Australia. He was the Vicar of Headington Quarry 1924–35.
The Rev. Edward Foord-Kelcey (1859–1934) took a B.A. from Pembroke College, Oxford, in 1887 and was ordained in 1888. His last living was as Rector of Kimble 1906–26, after which he retired to a house in Northfield Road, Headington. He came to know Jack and the Moores when they were living in 28 Warneford Road. There is a delightful portrait of him by Jack in the Lewis Papers, vol. XI, pp. 24–25 which ends ‘He was the worst preacher I ever sat under: and one of the most lovable—though by no means the least irritating—men I have ever known.’
Edward Hope (1866–1953) took a Sc.D. from Manchester and in 1919 he was elected Fellow and Tutor in Natural Science at Magdalen and Lecturer in Chemistry.
He is referring to his essay ‘Donne and Love Poetry in the Seventeenth Century’ which appeared in Seventeenth Century Studies Presented to Sir Herbert Grierson (1938).
He means the debate going on between himself and Dr E. M. W. Tillyard of Jesus College, Cambridge. It began with Jack’s essay ‘The Personal Heresy in Criticism’ in Essays and Studies by Members of the English Association, Vol. XIX (1934). This was answered by Dr Tillyard’s ‘The Personal Heresy in Criticism: A Rejoinder’ in Vol. XX of Essays and Studies (1935), to which Jack wrote a response entitled an ‘Open Letter to Dr Tillyard’, Vol. XXI of Essays and Studies (1936). These essays, with two more from Dr Tillyard and one from Jack, were published as The Personal Heresy: A Controversy (1939).
Out of the Silent Planet, the first of Jack’s three interplanetary novels, was published in the Autumn of 1938.
One of Jack’s pupils at this time, John Lawlor, saw the debate with Dr E. M. W. Tillyard. In his essay ‘The Tutor and the Scholar’, in Light on C. S. Lewis, ed. Jocelyn Gibb (1965), Professor Lawlor wrote: ‘[Lewis] was the dialectician all his life; and one must only add that he was superb .�.�. There was a memorable occasion when in the Hall at Magdalen Dr Tillyard met him to round off in debate the controversy begun with the publication of Lewis’s indictment of “the Personal Heresy”. I am afraid there was no debate. Lewis made rings round Tillyard; in, out, up, down, around, back again—like some piratical Plymouth bark against a high-built galleon of Spain.’
Charles Williams’s Judgement at Chelmsford (1939).
Owen Barfield’s Orpheus was performed on the stage in 1948. It was published as Orpheus: A Poetic Drama, ed. John C. Ulreich, by The Lindisfarne Press in 1983.
The Rev. Thomas Eric Bleiben (1903–47) succeeded Father Thomas as the Vicar of Headington Quarry. While Father Thomas had been exactly right for the Anglo-Catholic church in this parish, Jack found Father Bleiben, Vicar 1935–47, too much of a modernist.
Charles Walter Stansby Williams (1886–1945), an employee of the Oxford University Press since 1908, had published a number of what Jack called ‘theological thrillers’ before they met in 1936. Upon his arrival in Oxford he was quickly absorbed into ‘The Inklings’. Jack paid tribute to his friend in his Preface to Essays Presented to Charles Williams, ed. C. S. Lewis (1947). The best biography of Williams is probably Alice Mary Hadfield’s Charles Williams: An Exploration of His Life and Works (1983).
Charles Wrenn (1895–1969) was educated at Queen’s College, Oxford. After lecturing in a number of universities he returned to Oxford in 1930 as University Lecturer in Anglo-Saxon. In 1939 he was elected to a professorship at King’s College, London. In 1946 he once again returned to Oxford, this time to succeed J. R. R. Tolkien as Professor of Anglo-Saxon.
Gerard Walter Sturgis Hopkins (1892–1961), a translator and critic, served the Oxford University Press 1920–57, first as Publicity Manager and later as Editorial Adviser. He and Charles Williams had rooms in 9 South Parks Road, Oxford.
Maurice Rey Ridley (1890–1969), who had been an undergraduate at Balliol College, was a Fellow and Tutor in English Literature at Balliol 1920–45. From there he went on to become a Lecturer at Bedford College in London 1948–67.
Robert Emlyn Havard (1901–85) read Chemistry at Keble College before he studied medicine and became a doctor. He had a surgery in St Giles, a few steps from ‘The Eagle and Child’ pub, and another in Headington. He became the doctor to Jack and the other occupants of The Kilns in about 1934, and in 1940 he became one of ‘The Inklings’. Jack gave him the nickname ‘Humphrey’, and ‘Humphrey’ he was to The Inklings and other friends for the rest of his life.
The Continuity of English Prose (1932).
Jack arranged for Charles Williams to give a series of lectures during Hilary Term on ‘Milton’. They were delivered on Mondays at 11 A.M., the first one (referred to above) occuring on 29 January in the Divinity School of the Bodleian Library. His second lecture on 5 February, which Jack wrote to Warren about on 11 February, was on Comus.
All of Sister Penelope’s books were published during these years as by ‘A Religious of C.S.M.V.’. The book she had sent to Jack was Windows on Jerusalem (1941)
Perelandra is dedicated ‘To some Ladies at Wantage’—the Community of St Mary the Virgin.
Since he began talking over the BBC Jack had been getting an enormous number of letters from listeners. The two series, ‘Right and Wrong’ and ‘What Christians Believe’, were published in July 1942 under the title Broadcast Talks. This led to even more letters about those talks. Jack was here answering a question Sister Penelope asked about ch. 11 of Broadcast Talks in which he said ‘It may be a great advance in knowledge not to believe in witches: there’s no moral advance in not executing them when you don’t think they are there!’
He is referring to the essay entitled ‘The Last Judgement’ in J. B. S. Haldane’s Possible Worlds and Other Essays, the Phoenix Library edition (1930).
Miss Sayers was impressed by the Oxford University Socratic Club, of which Jack was President, and she hoped to start one in London.
Owen Barfield’s essay ‘Poetic Diction and Legal Fiction’ in Essays Presented to Charles Williams, ed. C. S. Lewis (1947).
The dinner jacket fitted to perfection Professor Tolkien’s son, Christopher.
Lord David Cecil (1902–86) was educated at Eton and Christ Church. He was a Fellow and Lecturer in Modern History at Wadham College 1924–30, and a Fellow of New College from 1939 until he was elected Goldsmith’s Professor of English at Oxford in 1948. Lord David was also a member of The Inklings.
John Wain is one of Jack’s pupils who became a member of The Inklings. He is such a good writer that the most pleasant way of learning more about him and his connection with The Inklings is through his Sprightly Running: Part of an Autobiography (1962).
Dr Firor practised medicine in Baltimore but had a ranch in Cody, Wyoming. He knew that Jack needed a rest but was unlikely to like American cities, and he invited him to the ranch.
In 1944 Professor Tolkien and Jack began talking about writing a book together on Language. By 1948 it got as far as the title ‘Language and Human Nature’ and was advertised by the S.P.C.K. as due in 1949. It was never written.
Jack and Warren were in southern Ireland for a holiday 14–28 August, after which Jack spent a fortnight with Arthur Greeves at Crawfordsburn, Co. Down.
This appeared in Arthurian Torso; Containing the Posthumous Fragment of ‘The Figure of Arthur’ by Charles Williams and A Commentary on the Arthurian Poems of Charles Williams by C. S. Lewis (1948).
This appeared in Arthurian Torso; Containing the Posthumous Fragment of ‘The Figure of Arthur’ by Charles Williams and A Commentary on the Arthurian Poems of Charles Williams by C. S. Lewis (1948).
English Literature in the Sixteenth Century.
II Kings II.23.
Mark VII.24–30.
De Descriptione Temporum (1955).
‘Let us pray for each other.’
Frank Edward Brightman (1856–1932) had been dead some years before Christopher Derrick read English under Jack at Magdalen. Brightman had taken his degree in 1879 and become a priest in 1885. After serving as a Librarian of Pusey House 1884–1903, he was a Fellow of Magdalen College 1902–32.
After what seemed a very long gestation to Jack, Professor Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings had been published in three volumes during 1954–55.
This is the book which eventually became The Discarded Image: An Introduction to Medieval and Renaissance Literature (1964).
David and Douglas Gresham were already in school at Dane Court in Pryford, Surrey, when Roger Lancelyn Green’s eldest son, Scirard, arrived there.
He is talking about a passage in Ch. IV of his Reflections on the Psalms which was published in September 1958.
Jack’s essay ‘Willing Slaves of the Welfare State’ appeared in The Observer (29 July 1958) p. 6. Accompanying it was a photograph of Jack and Joy by Michael Peto. Speaking of this ghastly photograph, Jack told me he thought it made him look ‘at least 120 years old’.
‘Not I, but the Lord’ (v. 10); ‘I speak, not the Lord’ (v. 12).
Miss Lynda Greer.
A kitchen porter in Magdalene.
Dr Fowler, who was the Fellow of English at Brasenose College, Oxford, at this time, has edited Jack’s lecture-notes on The Faerie Queene under the title Spenser’s Images of Life (1967).
His English Literature in the Sixteenth Century had become one of the critical works, along with those of Edward Dowden and Churton Collins, from which some of Dr Fowler’s pupils were plagiarising.
He means he couldn’t have had a digression on State interference in The Four Loves (1960).
Francis McD. C. Turner was a Fellow of Magdalene at the time.
R. W. M. Dias, also a Fellow of Magdalene, was a University Lecturer in Law.
‘to compare small things with great’.
Father Gervase Mathew (1905–76), who was educated at Balliol College, joined the order of Dominicans in 1928 and was ordained in 1934. Most of his life was spent at Blackfriars in Oxford where he lectured for the Modern History, Theology and English Faculties. He was a member of The Inklings and such a lovable man that it is impossible to believe that anyone could have ever disliked him.
‘In His will is our peace.’