C. S. Lewis and His Circle
Essays and Memoirs from the Oxford C.S. Lewis Society
Edited by Roger White, Judith Wolfe, and Brendan Wolfe
Author Information
Roger White is curator of the Inklings Special Collection for the University Libraries as well as Professor of Ministry for the Seminary at Azusa Pacific University in Azusa, California.
Judith Wolfe is Lecturer (Associate Professor) in Theology and the Arts at the University of St. Andrews, Scotland. She has published widely on C. S. Lewis and is the founding general editor of the Journal of Inklings Studies.
Brendan N. Wolfe is a Germanic philologist at Oxford, editor of the Journal of Inklings Studies, and past president and secretary of the C. S. Lewis Society of Oxford University.
Contributors:
Stella Aldwinckle (1907-1989) studied theology at Oxford and subsequently served as chaplain of the Oxford Pastorate. In 1941, she founded the Oxford Socratic Club, of which C. S. Lewis was President from 1942 to 1954.
Elizabeth Anscombe (1919-2001) was Professor of Philosophy at the University of Cambridge from 1970 to 1986. She was a student, editor, and translator of Wittgenstein, and is among the important philosophers of the twentieth century. Her 1948 debate with Lewis at the Oxford Socratic Club is often cited as his only outright intellectual defeat.
Owen Barfield (1898-1997) was a prolific writer and philosopher. Beginning in 1919, Barfield and Lewis maintained a life-long literary and intellectual friendship. From 1922 to 1930 the two engaged in an intense debate concerning imagination and truth, their 'Great War', as a result of which Barfield was instrumental in converting Lewis to theism. Barfield was a founding father of the 'Anthroposophical Society' and a visiting professor in North America. Lewis was godfather to Barfield's daughter Lucy; he dedicated and wrote the first Narnia book for her. Barfield was also Lewis's lawyer, adviser, and then trustee.
Peter Bide (1912-2003) studied English at Oxford before serving as a Royal Marines officer during the 1939-1945 war and then working at the Foreign Office. In 1949, he was ordained as a priest in the Church of England. After many years of parish ministry, he returned to Oxford as chaplain and tutor in Theology at Lady Margaret Hall in 1977, and remained there until his retirement in 1980. He officiated the marriage of C. S. Lewis and Joy Davidman Gresham.
Paul S. Fiddes holds the title of Professor of Systematic Theology in the University of Oxford, and is Director of Research at Regent's Park College, Oxford, having been Principal of the College from 1989 to 2007. His research interests include work on the interface between modern theology, literature, and continental philosophy. Among his many publications are The Creative Suffering of God (1988), Past Event and Present Salvation: The Christian Idea of Atonement (1989), Freedom and Limit: A Dialogue between Literature and Christian Doctrine (1991), The Promised End: Eschatology in Theology and Literature (2000), Participating in God: A Pastoral Doctrine of the Trinity (2000), Seeing the World and Knowing God: Hebrew Wisdom and Christian Doctrine in a Late-Modern Context (2013).
Malcolm Guite is the Chaplain of Girton College. He also teaches for the Divinity Faculty in Cambridge and for the Cambridge Theological Federation, and lectures widely in England and North America on theology and literature. He is the author of What Do Christians Believe? (2006), Faith Hope and Poetry (2010), Sounding the Seasons: Seventy Sonnets for the Christian Year (2012), and The Singing Bowl: Collected Poems (2013). He contributed the chapter on Lewis as a poet to the Cambridge Companion to C. S. Lewis (2010). His blog can be found at www.malcolmguite.com
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Ronald Head, Rev. Canon, (1919-1991) was Vicar of Holy Trinity Church, Headington Quarry-the church C. S. Lewis and his household attended-from 1956 to 1990.
Walter Hooper was C. S. Lewis's personal secretary, friend, literary executor, and editor, and remains the foremost expert on Lewis in the world. Works by Lewis that he has edited include the Complete Poems (1964), the Collected Letters (2000- 2006), and numerous essay collections. His own books include Past Watchful Dragons (1979), War in Deep Heaven: The Space Trilogy of C. S. Lewis (1987), and C. S. Lewis: A Companion and Guide (1996).
Stephen Logan is a musician and poet, who works also as a psychotherapist and lecturer in English. As lecturer, he has held senior appointments in Oxford, Cardiff, and Cambridge, where he is currently Principal Supervisor in English at Clare College. He has written several books of poetry, a monograph on Wordsworth, and has published widely in the national press. He has recently edited Peter Lomas's last book, Natural Psychotherapy, and has released a new album of original songs, 'Signs and Wonders'. His website is www.stevelogan.co.uk
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Alister McGrath was born in Belfast in 1953. Originally an atheist, he discovered Christianity while a student at Oxford University. McGrath served as Professor of Historical Theology at Oxford (1999-2008), and Professor of Theology, Ministry, and Education at King's College London (2008-2014). He is now the Andreas Idreos Professor of Science and Religion at Oxford University. He has written extensively on Lewis, and published two works to mark the fiftieth anniversary of Lewis's death: C. S. Lewis-A Life: Eccentric Genius, Reluctant Prophet (2013), and The Intellectual World of C. S. Lewis (2013).
Joan Murphy (née Lewis) was born in 1926 in Belfast and is first cousin, once removed to C. S. Lewis (her grandfather and C. S. Lewis's father were brothers). She studied History and Political Science at Trinity College Dublin with a research interest in the social world of Jane Austen. For many years she was a school librarian with an expertise in children's literature at the Church of
England upper school in Oxford and an editor for The School Librarian. In retirement she trained as a Blue Badge Guide for the city of Oxford and specialized in C. S. Lewis related tours.
Michael Piret studied English Literature at the State University College at Fredonia, New York, then at the University of Michigan and Merton College, Oxford. He was Fulford Junior Research Fellow at St Anne's College, Oxford, before training for ordination in the Scottish Episcopal Church. After a curacy at Inverness Cathedral, he returned to Oxford to serve as Dean of Divinity (Chaplain) at Magdalen College.
George Sayer (1914-2005) studied English at Magdalen College, Oxford, where he was tutored by C. S. Lewis. He went on to teach at Malvern College, and remained a friend of J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis, whose first biography he wrote.
Tom Shippey was an undergraduate at Cambridge (1961-1964), and attended Lewis's last set of lectures there. Since then he has taught at three British universities (Birmingham, Oxford, and Leeds) and three American ones (Harvard, Texas, and St Louis). He has published widely on mediaeval studies and mediaevalism, and has written three books on Tolkien. Now retired, he writes regularly for the Wall Street Journal.
John Wain C.B.E. (1925-1994), poet, author, and critic, was born in the Potteries and educated at St John's College, Oxford, in which city he spent most of his life. He served the University as Professor of Poetry from 1973 to 1978. His publications include thirteen novels and an acclaimed biography of Samuel Johnson (1974). The website of his Literary Estate is www.johnwain.com/wordpress
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Michael Ward is Senior Research Fellow at Blackfriars Hall in the University of Oxford and Professor of Apologetics at Houston Baptist University, Texas. A former warden of Lewis's home, The Kilns, he is the author of Planet Narnia: The Seven Heavens in the Imagination of C. S. Lewis (OUP 2008) and co-editor of The Cambridge Companion to C. S. Lewis (2010).
Kallistos Ware is an English bishop within the Eastern Orthodox Church under the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, and one of the best-known contemporary Eastern Orthodox theologians. He holds the Titular Metropolitan Bishopric of Diokleia. From 1966 to 2001, Ware was Spalding Lecturer of Eastern Orthodox Studies at the University of Oxford. He has authored many books and articles pertaining to the Orthodox Christian faith, including The Orthodox
Church (rev. ed. 1993).
Rowan Williams,
Baron Williams of Oystermouth PC FBA FRSL FLSW, is an Anglican theologian. He was Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity at the University of Oxford before being appointed first Bishop of Monmouth and then Archbishop of Wales. From 2002 to 2012, he was the 104th Archbishop of Canterbury. After his resignation, he took up the Mastership of Magdalene College, Cambridge, where C. S. Lewis was a professor. Lord Williams has written numerous books of theology, literary criticism, and poetry, and is one of the most influential religious thinkers of the present.
Gregory Wolfe is the founder and editor of Image journal. He serves as director of the low-residency MFA in Creative Writing program at Seattle Pacific University. His books include Beauty Will Save the World, Intruding Upon the Timeless, and Malcolm Muggeridge: A Biography.
Suzanne M. Wolfe, writer in residence at Seattle Pacific University, is a novelist whose books include Unveiling and the forthcoming Augustine's Concubine.
