C. S. Lewis: A Biography

(#ulink_1a662387-42ee-5fa2-9697-84c11aa92e0a) Eric Robertson Dodds (1893–1979) was born in Co. Down and educated at Campbell College, Belfast. He read Classics at University College, taking his BA in 1917. He was lecturer in Classics at University College, Reading, 1919–24, Professor of Greek at the University of Birmingham, 1924–36, and Professor of Greek at Oxford, 1936–60. See his autobiography, Missing Persons (1977).

(#ulink_2de12306-6f77-5a47-9759-10d1bde58a8f) Nevill Coghill (1899–1980), an Inkling, was born in Co. Cork. He served with the Royal Artillery during the war, after which he came up to Exeter College, Oxford. He read History and then English. After teaching for a while at the Royal Naval College at Dartmouth, he was elected Fellow of English at Exeter College in 1925. He was Merton Professor of English, 1957–66. Coghill produced many plays for the Oxford University Dramatic Society. However, it is as the translator of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales (1951) and Troilus and Criseyde (1971) that he was without peer. See his biography in CG.

(#ulink_2de12306-6f77-5a47-9759-10d1bde58a8f) Henry Victor Dyson ‘Hugo’ Dyson (1896–1975), an Inkling, was born in Hove. After leaving the Royal Military College at Sandhurst, he served in the Queen’s Own Royal Military Kent Regiment in 1915–18. He read English at Exeter College, after which he taught English at Reading University, 1924–45. He came to know Lewis in 1930 through Nevill Coghill, and he and Tolkien played a vital part in Lewis’s conversion the following year. He became the Fellow of English at Merton College in 1945. See his biography in CG.

(#ulink_2de12306-6f77-5a47-9759-10d1bde58a8f) John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (1892–1973) was born in South Africa to English parents, but from 1895 was raised in Birmingham. His mother became a Catholic in 1900 and from that point on Ronald and his brother Hilary were raised as Catholics. In 1902 Ronald became a pupil at St Philip’s School. He went up to Exeter College, Oxford in 1911 and read Honour Moderations, and then English, gaining a First in 1915. He served with the Lancashire Fusiliers 1915–18, having meanwhile married Edith Mary Bratt in 1916. They were to have four children. After being demobilized, Tolkien returned to Oxford and worked on the Oxford Dictionary. He was Professor of English Language and Literature at the University of Leeds, 1924, and in 1925 returned to Oxford as Professor of Anglo-Saxon. He was elected Merton Professor of English Language and Literature in 1945. Tolkien met Lewis in 1926, and in 1929 they began weekly meetings to read one another their compositions. They were the original Inklings’. Tolkien’s writings about ‘Middle Earth’ resulted in the publication of The Hobbit (1937) and the three volumes of The Lord of the Rings – The Fellowship of the Ring (1954), The Two Towers (1955) and The Return of the King (1955). See Humphrey Carpenter’s J.R.R. Tolkien: A Biography (1977) and The Inklings (1978).

(#ulink_02a8c7a9-2154-5403-b2ca-23ce93157279) Edith Elizabeth Wardale (1863–1943) entered Lady Margaret Hall in 1887, but moved a year later to the recently opened St Hugh’s College. After taking a First in Modern Languages she became Vice-Principal and Tutor of St Hugh’s College. She was intimately connected to women’s education during some of the most important years of its history. She remained at St Hugh’s until her retirement in 1923.

(#ulink_e1f8982b-cd31-583f-96bb-373ec48e8eef) Strickland Gibson (1877–1958) was from Oxford and was educated at St Catherine’s College. After taking his degree he was Assistant to Bodley’s Librarian, 1895–1912, Secretary to Bodley’s Librarian, 1912–31, and sub-librarian, 1931–45. Besides being Keeper of the University Archives, 1927–45, he was a Lecturer in Bibliography for the English Faculty, 1923–45. He published a number of historical and bibliographical articles.

(#ulink_e1f8982b-cd31-583f-96bb-373ec48e8eef) Charles Talbut Onions (1873–1965) was a distinguished lexicographer and grammarian. After taking a degree from the University of Birmingham in 1892 he published An Advanced English Syntax (1904). In 1895 he was invited to join the staff of the Oxford Dictionary at Oxford where he remained for the rest of his life. He was appointed a Fellow of Magdalen College in 1923. Besides his work on the Dictionary, he was a lecturer in English, 1920–7, and Reader in English Philology, 1927–49. See J.A.W. Bennett’s biography of him in the Dictionary of National Biography.

(#ulink_ee6c10aa-1e50-580f-9c46-41bbf36e32ae) Professor Sir Walter Raleigh (1861–1922), who was educated at University College, Oxford, became the first holder of the Chair of English Literature at Oxford in 1904. In 1914 he was made Merton Professor of English. His contribution to the study of English at Oxford was enormous, and his lectures aroused great enthusiasm.

(#ulink_ee6c10aa-1e50-580f-9c46-41bbf36e32ae) David Nichol Smith (1875–1962) entered Glasgow University in 1895 and was in the first class reading English. He became Fellow of English at Merton College in 1921, and was Merton Professor of English Literature, 1929–46.

(#ulink_76a36cbb-b7dc-5448-980e-fa1d05ed6815) Sir William Alexander Craigie (1867–1957), lexicographer and philologist, read Greats at Oriel College, Oxford, after which he worked on the New English Dictionary, 1897–1933, and was joint editor, 1901–33. He was Taylorian Lecturer in Scandinavian Languages, 1904–16, and Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon, 1916–25. His works include Scandinavian Folk-Lore (1896) and Specimens of Icelandic Rímur (1952).

(#ulink_76a36cbb-b7dc-5448-980e-fa1d05ed6815) Herbert Francis Brett-Smith (1884–1951) took his BA from Corpus Christi College, Oxford, in 1907. He was afterwards a lecturer in English Literature in several colleges of Oxford, and Goldsmith’s Reader in English.

NOTES

(#ulink_13ffd11c-0fb9-5a83-bf61-c8258505e7d5)SBJ, ch. 12, p. 144.

(#ulink_13ffd11c-0fb9-5a83-bf61-c8258505e7d5) Ibid., p. 145.

(#ulink_c11ffe6f-9c1b-5d37-b9ca-205774df4a7e)FL, pp. 297–8.

(#ulink_c11ffe6f-9c1b-5d37-b9ca-205774df4a7e) Ibid., p. 301.

(#ulink_a6c1c402-6363-5d7e-8ce4-87fe42fd5e1e) Ibid., letter to Arthur Greeves of 13 May 1917, p. 304.

(#ulink_a6c1c402-6363-5d7e-8ce4-87fe42fd5e1e) Ibid., p. 301.

(#ulink_a6c1c402-6363-5d7e-8ce4-87fe42fd5e1e) Ibid., p. 304.

(#ulink_19dc076d-ced4-5e6d-a684-ca615b176225) Ibid., p. 321.

(#ulink_7bb420fa-d78e-5e5d-b44d-dccd17c395cc) Ibid., p. 324.

(#ulink_0b20039b-ae2b-5f5c-b954-4eed6d8bf334) Ibid., p. 334.

(#ulink_83c3c05b-fd65-5ac5-b1e9-302e499cc7d9) Ibid., p. 335.

(#ulink_7c0e03f9-d932-58c1-a3b0-b9aec9e0f6fb) Ibid., p. 337.

(#ulink_312bbd20-6676-5065-8348-b017749d57b3) Ibid., p. 339.

(#ulink_b822ab8e-220b-59d6-a8e0-b54ef44eaeaa) Ibid., p. 345.

(#ulink_2a84c3f2-0f97-518b-81d8-e1d01faf3f9c) ‘C.S. Lewis: 1898–1963’, p. 57.

(#ulink_2a84c3f2-0f97-518b-81d8-e1d01faf3f9c)FL, p. 345n.

(#ulink_2a84c3f2-0f97-518b-81d8-e1d01faf3f9c) Ibid., p. 346.

(#ulink_efacf497-7b3b-5167-9537-84e2de2851de) Ibid.

(#ulink_98c8c25d-53be-5073-99b8-27d38d256fe8)SBJ, ch. 4, p. 51.

(#ulink_98c8c25d-53be-5073-99b8-27d38d256fe8) Ibid., ch. 12, p. 150.

(#ulink_98c8c25d-53be-5073-99b8-27d38d256fe8) For an account of his bravery see FL, p. 357, n. 11.

(#ulink_30c70426-4148-59dd-956c-83e5ac328ac6)FL, p. 348.

(#ulink_5d510b0f-248d-5077-ac6b-dff8054d0c7b) Ibid., p. 353.

(#ulink_235f7aae-38ed-5c26-8137-e20780e4dde4) Martin Gilbert, The First World War (1994), p. 414.

(#ulink_4d207e00-7efb-5336-81f4-6de3f16d334d)SBJ, ch. 12, pp. 151–2.

(#ulink_28dfb0e2-c841-513f-9876-593df5699ac6) Everard Wyrall, A History of the Somerset Light Infantry (Prince Albert) 1914–1919 (1927), pp. 292–4.

(#ulink_c77fd2ab-aa10-5fff-8017-8092224267f1) From a sketch of his life Lewis wrote for the jacket of Perelandra (New York: Macmillan, 1944).

(#ulink_c77fd2ab-aa10-5fff-8017-8092224267f1)FL, p. 366.

(#ulink_c77fd2ab-aa10-5fff-8017-8092224267f1) Ibid., p. 368.

(#ulink_c00881e1-bb80-52e8-8599-9f68d534acf8) Ibid., pp. 373–4.

(#ulink_ad7ca497-4b11-5fba-93ec-5ca06a1f3898)SBJ, ch. 13, p. 154.

(#ulink_3ff1546d-18ef-5eb0-90e6-46f54544fc39)FL, letter to Arthur Greeves of 23 May 1918, p. 371.

(#ulink_96dd2862-65a0-5b1e-ab84-eaffebb39721) Ibid., p. 386.

(#ulink_fc2ed87e-1f35-5312-bf7b-0117bd9ff031) ‘Memoir’, p. 30.

(#ulink_c403ed24-6bb4-5cd1-aa59-97c74c5b53ec) LP VI, pp. 44–5.

(#ulink_73fab331-1d59-5727-b8d3-6e48d3a25c76)FL, p. 397.

(#ulink_69a58891-36a4-5e88-b46e-338038bc3131) Ibid., p. 403.

(#ulink_2c7b8e60-1aef-5780-bdc0-164bd12709f5) Ibid., pp. 411, 412, 413.