"In this book the reader is offered the work of one professional author, two dons, a solicitor, a friar, and a retired army officer; if he feels disposed to complain of hotch-potch (which incidentally is an excellent dish; consult the NOCTES AMBROSIANAE) I must reply that the variety displayed by this little group is far too small to represent the width of Charles Williams' friendships. Nor are we claiming to represent it. Voices from many parts of England - voices of people often very different from ourselves - would justly rebuke our presumption if we did. We know that he was as much theirs as ours: not only, nor even chiefly, because of his range and versatility, great though these were, but because, in every circle that he entered, he gave the whole man. I had almost said that he was at everyone's disposal, but those words would imply a passivity on his part, and all who knew him would find the implication ludicrous. You might as well say that an Atomic breaker on a Cornish beach is 'at the disposal' of all whom it sweeps off their feet. If the authors of this book were to put forward any claim, it would be, and that shyly, that they were for the last few years of his life a fairly permanent nucleus among his LITERARY friends. He read us his manuscripts and we read him ours: we smoked, talked, argued, and drank together (I must confess that with Miss Dorothy Sayers I have seen him drink only tea: but that was neither his fault nor hers).
"Of many such talks this collection is not unrepresentative."
Clive Staples Lewis was born in Ireland, in Belfast on 29 November 1898. His mother was a devout Christian and made efforts to influence his beliefs. When she died in his early youth her influence waned and Lewis was subject to the musings and mutterings of his friends who were decidedly agnostic and atheistic. It would not be until later, in a moment of clear rationality that he first came to a belief in God and later became a Christian.
C. S. Lewis volunteered for the army in 1917 and was wounded in the trenches in World War I. After the war, he attended university at Oxford. Soon, he found himself on the faculty of Magdalen College where he taught Mediaeval and Renaissance English.
Throughout his academic career he wrote clearly on the topic of religion. His most famous works include the Screwtape Letters and the Chronicles of Narnia. The atmosphere at Oxford and Cambridge tended to skepticism. Lewis used this skepticism as a foil. He intelligently saw Christianity as a necessary fact that could be seen clearly in science.
"Surprised by Joy" is Lewis's autobiography chronicling his reluctant conversion from atheism to Christianity in 1931.
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