The following is part of a series reflecting on the life of C.S. Lewis. This is accomplished by summarizing various events or happenings during his lifetime for the noted period and may include significant events related to him after his death.

Highlights for the opening third of October (1st – 10th) include: Concluding book from his final BBC radio series, an unsigned review of The Hobbit and the release of A Preface to ‘Paradise Lost’.

While Lewis did go on to record a radio series on love in the late 1950’s, his final one for the BBC was given in early 1944. The book version of it was published on the 9^th of October that same year as Beyond Personality: The Christian Idea of God. It is now more remembered at being the forth book in Mere Christianity where it was given a new subtitle: “Or First Steps in the Doctrine of the Trinity.”  In either edition there were eleven chapters, however, there were only seven talks on the radio, so he added four chapters. They were “Time and Beyond” (chapter 3), “Two Notes” (chapter 6), “Counting the Cost” (chapter 9), and “Nice People or New Men” (chapter 10). In the preface to the volume (not provided in Mere Christianity), Lewis states he is attempting “to put into simple modern language the account of God which, to the best of my knowledge, the vast majority of Christian churches have” in agreement over time.

The only other book released during this period was just a couple of years earlier. On the 8^th in 1942 A Preface to ‘Paradise Lost’. Recalling Lewis’s professional work as an Oxford Don at the time he published this makes it no surprise he would create something like this. However, it might be surprising that he first read Paradise Lostas a nine year old! Also, while Milton was a favorite author of Lewis, it was actually due in part to the influence of his friend, Charles Williams that he wrote this work. The book was even dedicated to him. Prior to being published much of the material was given in 1941 as the Ballard Matthews Lectures at University College, North Wales.

In 1937 a then unknown author by the name of J.R.R. Tolkien published The Hobbit. Lewis was a close friend and had actually heard parts of the story over the previous years. On the 2nd in 1937 (not long after the book was released) he published a review of the book. Then the review was called “A World for Children” when found in The Times Literary Supplement. A second review was printed on the 8th in The Times. While the former is the only one currently available (its in On Stories as “The Hobbit”), both reviews are in Image and Imagination (a collection of shorter works which consists mostly of book reviews that came out in 2013).

Two different versions of “Miracles” was published this month in 1942. A shorter account was released in The Guardian on the 2nd and Saint Jude’s Gazette had an expanded version of it in their October issue. The latter is found in God in the Dock. Both are actually an adaptation of a sermon Lewis preached on September 27, 1942 at St Jude on the Hill Church. All this predates Lewis officially beginning to write a book of the same name that came out in 1947. Speaking of that book, an essay called “Horrid Red Things,” published on the 6th in 1944 in Church of England Newspaper is a version of a chapter in Miracles. You can learn more about the essay from a podcast chat I did with Dr. Charlie Starr.

Several other essays came out that were not tied to a specific date in October because of being published in monthly periodicals.  “Talking about Bicycles” was a piece initially published in the October, 1946 issue of Resistance and is best available in Present Concerns. Lewis present a discussion with a friend about some periods the person had passed through in relation to bicycles and how they can be applied to other aspects in life. The 1950 issue of The Month included Lewis’s article entitled “Historicism.” It is reprinted in Christian Reflections. “A Note on Jane Austen” came out in the October, 1954 issue of Essays in Criticism and focused on four novels by Austen. It is reprinted in Selected Literary Essays.  “Before We Can Communicate” is an essay published in the October, 1961 issue of Breakthrough that can be best found in God in the Dock. Lewis discussed the challenge of Christians who use the same words but hold different meanings to those words.

A couple ongoing series continued during early October. Two letters from Screwtape and another talk on the radio from the Christian Behavior broadcast was given. The interesting thing about the correspondence to Wormwood is that these were the first ones to contain a subtitle. From what I’m aware of these subtitles were created by the editor of The Guardian and not Lewis himself. On the 3rd in 1941 the twenty-third letter was called “The Historical Jesus”. In it Screwtape begins by noting because the patient is spending more time with “very intelligent Christians” and spirituality can’t be removed from his life that the only thing left to do is to corrupt it! The twenty-fourth letter on the 10th had the subtitle of “Spiritual Pride.” The demon, Slumtrimpet, who is in charge of the patient’s girlfriend, is introduced. “Morality and Psychoanalysis” was the third talk from the Christian Behaviour series on the BBC on the 4th in 1942. It became chapter four in the book version because of new material Lewis added for the second chapter. As you might be aware from the title, the subject focuses on how Freud’s view of morality compares with the Biblical perspective.

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