The book this companion is keyed to
This study companion follows the chapter structure of C. S. Lewis’s The Problem of Pain, first published in the United Kingdom in October 1940:
- Title: The Problem of Pain
- Author: C. S. Lewis
- First publisher: Geoffrey Bles: The Centenary Press, London (October 1940)
- Dedication: To the Inklings, with an epigraph drawn from the Scottish minister and author George MacDonald (1824–1905) — on the theme that Christ’s own suffering was not meant to spare believers pain, but to shape their pain after his
- Structure: Ten chapters (Introductory; Divine Omnipotence; Divine Goodness; Human Wickedness; The Fall of Man; Human Pain; Human Pain, continued; Hell; Animal Pain; Heaven) plus an Appendix
- Appendix author: Robert Emlyn Havard (1901–1985), Lewis’s physician and a fellow member of the Inklings
- Genre / subjects: Christian apologetics · theodicy · Pain — Religious aspects — Christianity · Good and evil · Providence and government of God
- Reference scan used for bibliographic identification: a HarperSanFrancisco / HarperCollins paperback edition (2000), 182 pages, ISBN 978-0-06-065296-8, held in the Internet Archive’s access-restricted, print-disabled lending collection — archive.org/details/problemofpain00lewi_0
Copyright determination
The Problem of Pain is still under copyright and UECF.NET has no licence to reproduce its text. This is not a simple age calculation, so here is the reasoning in full:
- United States: Because the book was first published in the United Kingdom in 1940 and C. S. Lewis died in 1963 — meaning the work was still under copyright in its home country when the Uruguay Round Agreements Act (17 U.S.C. §104A) restored US copyright in qualifying foreign works — The Problem of Pain holds a full US copyright term of 95 years from first publication, regardless of whether a US renewal was ever separately filed. That places US public-domain entry at 1 January 2036. The University of Pennsylvania’s Online Books Page, which tracks exactly this category of restored foreign titles, lists The Problem of Pain as restricted from US public-domain access.
- United Kingdom: UK copyright runs for the author’s life plus 70 years. Lewis died on 22 November 1963, so the book remains under UK copyright through the end of 2033, entering the public domain on 1 January 2034.
- Rights holder: The literary estate is controlled by the C. S. Lewis Company Ltd; current trade editions in the United States are published under the HarperOne / HarperCollins imprint.
- The Internet Archive item referenced above sits in a controlled-digital-lending, print-disabled collection — it can be borrowed there under the Archive’s own access terms, but it is not a freely downloadable or public-domain text. UECF.NET has not borrowed that scan, bypassed any access restriction, downloaded restricted files by unauthorised means, or substituted an unauthorised copy from elsewhere.
Because the full text cannot legally be reproduced here, this page and the rest of the study companion instead provide: the book’s title, author, and verified bibliographic information; an original UECF.NET description of the book; its table of contents; a link to the legitimate Internet Archive record for readers who wish to borrow it there; clear copyright and source attribution (this page); and, for each chapter, original UECF.NET summaries, themes, Scripture cross-references, and study questions rather than Lewis’s own wording.
What you are reading elsewhere on this site is an original UECF.NET Web Book / Study Companion. None of the summarising prose on the chapter pages is Lewis’s own wording, and this companion does not fabricate quotations from the book — it contains none. Readers who want Lewis’s actual words should read the book itself, from a library, a bookseller, or the Internet Archive’s lending copy.
How this web edition was produced
UECF.NET used publicly available bibliographic sources — the Internet Archive catalogue record, the Online Books Page’s foreign-copyright-status listing, standard reference works on C. S. Lewis and the Inklings, and the published table of contents — to establish the facts stated above. The explanatory content on every chapter page was written by UECF.NET for this study companion. We are responsible for the web presentation, navigation, search, and reading interface; C. S. Lewis and his estate are responsible for the book itself.
Scripture quotations
Scripture quoted on these pages is the King James Version (public domain). Lewis’s own discussion of Scripture in the printed book is not reproduced.
Corrections
If you notice an inaccuracy in a bibliographic detail, date, or attribution on this page, please write to info@uecf.net.