1898-1963

Academic, writer, and Christian apologist, born in Belfast, NE Northern Ireland, UK. Educated privately, he served in World War 1, then studied at Oxford. He taught at Oxford (1925-54), and was professor of Mediaeval and Renaissance English at Cambridge from 1954. His novel The Screwtape Letters (1942), is the most well known of more than 40 works on Christian apologetics, and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (1950), was the first in the Chronicles of Narnia, which has become a classic children's series. He also wrote science fiction books, such as Out of the Silent Planet (1938). His autobiography, Surprised by Joy (1955), describes his conversion to Christianity. His brief marriage to Joy Davidman (d.1960) was the subject of the successful play and film, Shadowlands.

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