C. S. Lewis: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 17:51, 5 December 2005

Revision as of 17:53, 5 December 2005

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==Early life==

Clive Staples Lewis was born in [[Belfast]], [[Ireland]] (now [[Northern Ireland]]), to Albert James Lewis and Flora Augusta Hamilton Lewis. He had a brother, [[Warren Lewis|Warren Hamilton Lewis]] (Warnie), three years his elder. He adopted the name "Jack" as a boy, simply because he liked the sound of it. From that point on, he was known by this nickname by close friends and family. Lewis' mother died in 1908, and he was sent to a number of different schools in England. Around 1913 he abandoned his childhood Christian faith. In 1929, he became a [[theist]]: "In the Trinity Term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed…" Encouraged by [[T. S. Eliot]] and [[J. R. R. Tolkien]], in 1931 he returned to Christianity.

Lewis had a passion for "dressed animals" as a boy, falling in love with [[Beatrix Potter]]'s stories and often writing and illustrating his own animal stories. He and his brother, Warnie, together created the world of [[Boxen (C.S.Lewis)|Boxen]], which was inhabited and run by animals. Lewis loved to read, and as his father's house was filled with books, he felt that finding a book he hadn't read was as easy as finding a blade of grass. He also had a mortal fear of spiders and insects as a child, so they often haunted his dreams.