C. S. Lewis: Screwtape, Essays and Poems

The Screwtape Letters, by C. S. Lewis.

A 1950 Hardback edition, most notable (to me) for including a picture of Screwtape on the back cover drawn by Lewis himself. John had this for years (a Yesterday’s Warehouse find that he beat me to) and then he gave me it later. The book that Lewis dedicated to Tolkien. The frail paper cover is a little beat up, but what do you expect from a 70-year-old book? A unique example among my several copies of ‘Screwtape’.

Ranking: Essential.

File Code: Apologetics. Satire. Hardback.

God in the Dock: Essays on Theology and Ethics (Eerdman’s; Edited by Walter Hooper); On Stories and Other Essays on Literature (Harcourt Brace; Edited by Walter Hooper); Of Other Worlds: Essays and Stories (Harcourt Brace; Edited with a Preface, by Walter Hooper); Present Concerns (Harcourt Brace; Edited by Walter Hooper), by C. S. Lewis.

Lewis was a prolific contributor of many essays, articles, and prefaces to various newspapers, magazines, and books. After his death, Walter Hooper, who for a short while acted as his secretary and was appointed as his literary executor, went around and meticulously gathered these short works up and published them in book form.

Ranking: Essential.

File Code: Essays. Anthology. Softcovers.

Spirits in Bondage: A Cycle of Lyrics; Poems; and Narrative Poems, by C. S. Lewis.

All are published by Harcourt Brace, and all are Edited by Walter Hooper. ‘Spirits’ was written before his conversion, his only book published for a long time, and gives an insight into his thoughts and feelings before his recovered faith. ‘Poems’ are shorter verse, and ‘Narrative Poems’ longer story-telling poetry. Notable in ‘Poems’ is ‘Narnian Suite’, a marching song in two sections, set for dwarfs and giants.

Ranking: Essential.

File Code: Poetry. Anthology. Softcovers.

Items from the Wish List: Around and About C. S. Lewis

The Magical World of the Inklings New and Expanded Edition

by Gareth Knight  (Author), Owen Barfield (Foreword)

"Because of the combination of information, understanding and insight on which it is founded, The Magical World of the Inklings is more than outstanding. It is not in the same league with anything else I have come across." - Owen Barfield The works of J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, Charles Williams and Owen Barfield have had a profound impact on the contemporary world. Together they were The Inklings, a small literary group of friends who set out to explore the 'mythopoeic' or myth-making element in imaginative fiction. The Magical World of the Inklings reveals how each of these writers created a 'magical world' which initiated the reader into hidden and powerful realms of the creative imagination. – Amazon.

This Ever Diverse Pair by Owen Barfield  (Author)

This Ever Diverse Pair was first published in 1950, when Barfield was practising as a solicitor in London. A humorous portrayal of everyday life in a lawyer's office, the novel's true subject is what C.S. Lewis described as "the rift in every life between the human person and his public persona - between, say, the man and the bus conductor or the man and the king..." Owen Barfield is one of the twentieth century's most significant writers and philosophers. Widely renowned for his insight and literary artistry, Barfield addresses key concerns of the sciences, humanities, social sciences, and arts in our time. His fellow Inklings, C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien, are among the leading figures influenced by Barfield's work. "A work of art and more original than anything I have read for a long time" - C.S. Lewis. – Amazon.

The Land of the Lord High Tiger by Roger Lancelyn Green (Author)

The Personal Heresy: A Controversy, by C. S. Lewis and E. M. W. Tillyard

Companion to Narnia, Revised Edition: A Complete Guide to the Magical World of C.S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia by Paul F. Ford  (Author)

Step into the Wardrobe.

This peerless companion has served as an adventurer's passport to the land of Narnia for twenty-five years and was used by the cast and crew of the major motion picture The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. From Aslan, the Great Lion, to Zardeenah, the mysterious lady of the night, this comprehensive, accessible book contains hundreds of alphabetically arranged and indexed entries covering all the characters, events, places, and themes that Lewis brilliantly wove into his timeless and magical world.

For readers of all ages, this is the perfect guide for the enchanted world of C. S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia. – Amazon.

The Golden String: An Autobiography by Bede Griffiths  (Author)

Sheldon Vanauken: The Man Who Received "A Severe Mercy" by Will Vaus  (Author)

The life story of Sheldon Vanauken is one of adventure, romance, conversion, grief, and recovery. Much of this was chronicled in the autobiographical bestseller, A Severe Mercy.However, a good deal of Vanauken's fascinating life remained shrouded in secrecy ... until now. Through a process of careful historical research, including interviews with Vanauken's many friends, colleagues, and students, Will Vaus reveals to the reader the numerous facets of a complex character.

In this biography we discover: Vanauken the struggling student, the bon-vivant lover, the sailor who witnessed the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the seeker who returned to faith through C. S. Lewis, the beloved professor of English literature and history, the feminist and anti-war activist who participated in the March on the Pentagon, the bestselling author, and Vanauken the convert to Catholicism. What emerges is the portrait of a man relentlessly in search of beauty, love, and truth, a man who believed that, in the end, he found all three.

"A sympathetic, perceptive and well researched study of one of America's most important recent religious writers. Readers of A Severe Mercy are in Will Vaus' debt for such an illuminating and informative study." Alister McGrath, author of C. S. Lewis: A Life

"Van was a character - a very good one as it happens, and Will Vaus catches the actuality of this intriguing man of many parts. Very illuminating reading." Thomas Howard, author of On Being Catholic

"This is a charming biography about a doubly charming man who wrote a triply charming book. It is a great way to meet the man behind A Severe Mercy." Peter Kreeft, author of Jacob's Ladder: Ten Steps to Truth

"Vaus has masterfully captured the spirit of Vanauken, his deep desire for beauty, his mistakes along the way, and eventually his love of God. Reading this biography takes me back to the same deep emotions I have every time I read A Severe Mercy." Jim Belcher, author of Deep Church

"Sheldon Vanauken's story of C. S. Lewis, Oxford, a passionate love, and a tragic loss captured the imagination of Evangelical Christians thirty years ago. Will Vaus' biography of the author of A Severe Mercy captures the same mixture of a flawed romantic quest driven by a longing for truth, goodness and beauty, that culminates in the fullness of the Catholic faith. Vaus' book is a study in divine providence and a captivating biography of a unique and noble soul." Fr. Dwight Longenecker, author of The Quest for the Creed

"Very well written, thoroughly researched, hard to put down despite many tears - Will Vaus captures the essence of Van in this book." Marion, Davy Vanauken's daughter

Will Vaus is a popular speaker and the author of a variety of books including The Hidden Story of Narnia, Speaking of Jack, and Mere Theology. – Amazon.

C. S. Lewis: Some Core Works

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe; Prince Caspian; The Voyage of the ‘Dawn Treader’; The Silver Chair; The Horse and His Boy; The Magician’s Nephew; and The Last Battle, by C. S. Lewis. Illustrated by Pauline Baynes, covers by Daniel San Souci.

I have written elsewhere about my first encounter of the Chronicles of Narnia with ‘Lion’ in middle school, and how I first rejected it. As my enthusiasm with Lewis grew in high school, I soon got a full set of boxed paperbacks with the dreadful 70’s Roger Hane covers and limited illustration; I gave those to Terry Patterson years later. I had since replaced them with these copies, in the middle 80’s I think; they have the complete illustrations – Lewis declared them “more than illustrations, they are a collateral theme.” I don’t suppose I need to describe the plots – you can find that anywhere. I think that part of it that I enjoy about the books is what annoyed Tolkien most: it’s eclectic, Spenserian mix of different mythologies, talking animals, and allegory, a lovely brew that releases all of Lewis’s childhood enthusiasms in the wake of a long, troubling period of his life. My favorite character is Puddleglum: “Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things-trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. And that's a funny thing, when you come to think of it. We're just babies making up a game, if you're right. But four babies playing a game can make a play-world which licks your real world hollow. That's why I'm going to stand by the play world. I'm on Aslan's side even if there isn't any Aslan to lead it. I'm going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn't any Narnia.” I never realized quite how ‘niche’ this edition was until I went looking for images. Some of the bigger pictures of the covers I was able to find do not conform to the color of the copies I have, which matches those in the ‘series’ pictures.

Ranking: Essential.

File Code: Fantasy. Children’s Books. Softcovers.

Mere Christianity (Harper), Miracles (Harper), The Screwtape Letters (Harper), The Problem of Pain (Harper), The Four Loves (Harcourt Brace), Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer (Harcourt Brace), and A Grief Observed (Harper), by C. S. Lewis.

I have so many Lewis books, I must take them in batches, I think. These are some of his books of apologetics, explaining and defending Christian belief. Lewis is largely responsible for my hanging onto God through offering a logical argument and explanation of Christian faith; I was not very susceptible to, and even a little repulsed by, the mushy emotional or fear-based appeals that had ‘entrapped’ Mom. Mom’s love of God was pure, I think, but the forms of religion she’d fallen prey to caused her more pain than comfort. Anyway, ‘Mere Christianity’ was the most influential of these books for me, although they all made good arguments as they addressed love, pain, belief, and sorrow.

Ranking: Essential.

File Code: Christian Apologetics. Softcovers.

Items from the Wish List: Charles Williams

Charles Williams: The Third Inkling by Grevel Lindop  (Author)

This is the first full biography of Charles Williams (1886-1945), an extraordinary and controversial figure who was a central member of the Inklings, the group of Oxford writers that included C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. Charles Williams, novelist, poet, theologian, magician and guru, was the strangest, most multi-talented, and most controversial member of the group. – Amazon.

To Michal from Serge: Letters from Charles Williams to His Wife Florence, 1939-1945 by Roma A King (Editor)

These letters to “Michal,” Williams endearing name for his wife, from “Serge,” a moniker by which his most intimate friends addressed him, are more than just a collection of love letters―they are significant for what they tell us about the man, for the light they throw on his work, and for the way they show Williams in the context of his literary contemporaries (C. S. Lewis, T. S. Eliot, W. H. Auden, Dorothy L. Sayers, Christopher Fry, and Edith Sitwell). In fact, Williams felt that T. S. Eliot and C. S. Lewis were the only two people other than his wife to whom he could talk seriously about important matters. – Amazon.

James I: A Biography of a King by Charles Williams (Author), Dorothy L. Sayers (Introduction)

“The following pages are concerned with James Stuart, and not the history of England except as it affected James Stuart” writes Williams in his preface. All relevant historical details are woven into this narrative account, however, like his novels, Williams pushes further into the very personality of James. Early chapters cover the alliances, plots, and threats of his Scotland years; latter chapters cover his reign in England, which commenced in 1603. Situated between the executions of his mother (Mary) and his son (Charles I), "the curious figure of James stands at the change of the centuries. The splendour of the Renascence homo is becoming the clarity of the seventeenth-century gentleman" "Shakespeare and Bacon were to be his servants; Harvey his physician, Donne his chaplain. He was to be the patron of the great English book that declared the coming of the Prince of Peace, and to see himself as a prince of peace, bringing rest to the afflicted churches and nations. But war in Europe and war in England were to open over his grave; the gossips were to spice their scandalous talk with his name; and afterwards everybody was always to laugh or shudder at him for ever." – Amazon.

The Grabbiest of Sunday Grab-Bags

Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (Softcover), Son of a Witch (Softcover), A Lion Among Men (Hardback), and Out of Oz: The Final Volume in the Wicked Years (Hardback), by Gregory Maguire.

‘Wicked’ of course is the novel that the acclaimed Broadway show is based on. It has some merit in itself as a ‘re-imagining’ of an Oz riven with politics and social forces that cause Elphaba to become the not-so-Wicked Witch and Dorothy the catspaw that the Wizard uses to eliminate her. The other novels in the series devolve, I think, as they go along; I kept buying them on discount more because of my obsessive/compulsive nature than through any enjoyment. And there is a sick fascination about following a train wreck. And, you know, it’s Oz, for a given quality of Oz.

Ranking: (Blech) Keepers.

File Code: Fantasy. Novels.

The Persian Boy, by Mary Renault.

Renault was the same sort of ‘historical recreator’ as Robert Graves, and her novels were highly thought of and recommended, once on a time. I got this copy at a Seguin public library sale. “The Persian Boy centers on the most tempestuous years of Alexander the Great’s life, as seen through the eyes most faithful attendant, Bagoas. When Bagoas is very young, his father is murdered, and he is sold as a slave to King Darius of Persia. Then, when Alexander conquers the land, he is given Bagoas as a gift, and the boy is besotted. This passion comes at a time when much is at stake—Alexander has two wives, conflicts are ablaze, and plots on the Macedon king’s life abound. The result is a riveting account of a great conqueror’s years of triumph and, ultimately, heartbreak.” – Wikipedia. [Lacks jacket.]

Ranking: Keeper.

File Code: Novel. Historical. Hardback.

The World of Washington Irving, by Van Wyck Brooks.

Researching into it, I find that this was one in a series by Brooks. It covers a time period of about 1800 - 1840, its intellectual and political climate in America, with notes about daily life. Very nice for research on my own book, as it turns out. In rather deplorable condition now, I think John (or was it Mike?) bought this at Yesterday’s Warehouse.

Ranking: Keeper.

File Code: History. Biography. Hardback.

One Hundred Story Poems, Selected by Elinor Parker. Illustrated by Henry C. Pitz.

Ex-library. Now this one I know used to be John’s; I can see it sitting with his other books on the old canning shelf we brought in from the garage. Another Yesterday’s Warehouse find.  Anthology of longish poems in every category that tell tales, perfect for recitations. Humor, adventure, mystery – it’s all here. The binding is a little rough and the inside covers bear testimony to its former library life, but I cherish it. [Lacks this jacket.]

Ranking: Keeper.

File Code: Poetry. Anthology. Hardback.

Summertime: A Novel, by David Fleming

A book by our high school Creative Writing teacher. Those classes were mostly a gab fest where Fleming would give us some examples of his favorite authors, we’d talk awhile, then the whole session would evolve into a discussion about Life, Meaning, and Aspirations. He sometimes read sections of this novel to us at the Writer’s Round Table, the after-school club. “On a drought-stricken Texas farm, young Rick McAlister waits with the farm hands for the rain and, after a shocking act of violence, for a confrontation with an evil neighbor.” – Amazon. I swear that someday, after nearly 40 years, I WILL read this book to the end.

Ranking: Keeper.

File Code: Novel. Hardback.

The New Oxford Annotated Bible, Revised Standard Version, Edited by Herbert G. May and Bruce M. Metzger.

I used a checked out library copy of this edition for my Bible in my New Testament religion class in college, and found its scholarly, non-sectarian approach just the high-and-dry sort of methods were what I needed at the time, as I withdrew and examined my beliefs. Pleased to find this used copy and add it to my collective, it was my go-to Bible for years, and is still useful for research.

Ranking: Keeper.

File Code: Bible. Annotated. Hardback.

Items from the Wish List: More Actors

Absolute Pandemonium: My Louder Than Life Story Brian Blessed

There's no one quite like Brian Blessed: actor, storyteller, mountaineer and coffin-maker. In this frank, riotous memoir he recalls his childhood in a Yorkshire mining town, his breakthrough on Z Cars, falling for Katharine Hepburn, raising hell with Peter O'Toole, meeting the love of his life, the actress Hildegard Neil - and punching Harold Pinter down a flight of stairs. No long dramatic pauses this time, Harold; he got one right on the side of the jaw. Wham! – Amazon.

Panther In My Kitchen by Brian Blessed  (Author)

Brian Blessed has a lifelong love of animals and over the years has rescued cats and dogs, horses and ponies, and even a very ungrateful fighting cock. All were characters in their own right, such as Jessie, a dog left languishing for a year at the local RSPCA, who ruled the entire household with a rod of iron, when she wasn’t out harassing the local vicar. Then there was Bodger, an abused terrier cross breed, who was nursed back to health by Brian and his wife, and Peppone, a stray cat and notorious thief, who was responsible for a crime epidemic in the Bagshot area. Most of all there was Misty, a soul mate and the first Jack Russell Brian met who didn’t take an instant dislike to him. Over the years Brian has encountered more exotic animals too, from Kali the black panther who had free run of his kitchen and the gentle boa constrictor Bo Bo who went for walks with him in Richmond Park to the female gorillas who found him incredibly attractive. Written with all of Brian’s ebullience, The Panther in My Kitchen is a laugh-out-loud, life-affirming book about the joy animals bring and why we should care for them. – Amazon.

Gilliamesque: A Pre-posthumous Memoir by Terry Gilliam  (Author)

The screenwriter, innovative animator, highly acclaimed visionary film director, and only non-British member of Monty Python offers an intimate glimpse into his world in this fascinating memoir illustrated with hand-drawn sketches, notes, and memorabilia from his personal archive.

From his no-frills childhood in the icy wastes of Minnesota, to some of the hottest water Hollywood had to offer, via the cutting edge of 1960s and ’70s counter-culture in New York, L.A. and London, Terry Gilliam’s life has been as vivid, entertaining and unorthodox as one of his films.

Telling his story for the first time, the director of Time Bandits, Brazil, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, The Fisher King, 12 Monkeys, and Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas—not to mention co-founder of Monty Python’s Flying Circus—recalls his life so far. Packed with never-before-seen artwork, photographs and commentary, Gilliamesque blends the visual and the verbal with scabrous wit and fascinating insight.

Gilliam’s “pre-posthumous memoir” also features a cast of amazing supporting characters—George Harrison, Robin Williams, Jeff Bridges, Robert De Niro, Brad Pitt, Uma Thurman, Johnny Depp, Heath Ledger and all of the fellow Pythons—as well as cameo appearances from some of the heaviest cultural hitters of modern times, from Woody Allen to Frank Zappa, Gloria Steinem to Robert Crumb, Richard Nixon to Hunter S. Thompson. Gilliam’s encounters with the great and the not-so-good are revealing, funny, and hugely entertaining.

This book is an unrestrained look into a unique creative mind and an incomparable portrait of late twentieth-century popular culture. – Amazon.

Which Reminds Me by Tony Randall  (Author), Michael Mindlin (Author)

The actor and entertainer offers a collection of show business anecdotes from his forty years in television, motion pictures, and the theater, from Broadway to Europe. – Amazon.

Dear Me: Peter Ustinov by Peter Ustinov  (Author)

Autobiography of Peter Ustinov. – Amazon.

Ustinov: Still at Large by Peter Ustinov  (Author)

More Fool Me: A Memoir by Stephen Fry  (Author)

More Fool Me is a brilliant, eloquent account by a man driven to create and to entertain―revealing a dark side he has long kept hidden. By his early thirties, Stephen Fry― television darling and critically acclaimed and bestselling author with a coterie of equally talented friends―had, as they say, “made it.” Writing and recording by day, and haunting a never-ending series of celebrity parties by night, he was a high functioning addict in both work and play. He was so distracted by the high life that he could hardly see the inevitable, headlong tumble that must surely follow . . .  – Amazon.