Category: Jack in Retrospect

RETROSPECT: March 1st – 11th

William OFlaherty Jack in Retrospect, Special Feature

Highlights for the first third of March (1st – 11th) include: First book collecting quotations and shorter passages, how Charles Williams became a friend and a former student previews The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

Less than five years after C.S. Lewis died a collection containing brief excerpts from a wide range of his writings came out on the 4th of March in 1968. A Mind Awake: An Anthology of C.S. Lewis would be the first of many books featuring quotations or shorter selections. This debut work was edited by Clyde S. Kilby, the person who began what we know today as The Marion E. Wade Center. The book is arranged into ten major sections and nearly all of those divisions are further divided into sub-themes.

RETROSPECT: February 19th – 29th

William OFlaherty Jack in Retrospect, Special Feature

Highlights for the final third of February (19th – 29th) include: The beginning of his fourth and final BBC series of talks, a landmark lecture series that would become one of his most insightful works aimed at a mainstream audience, and a new edition of The Screwtape Letters containing a second preface.

The fourth and final BBC radio series kicked off on the 22nd in 1944. The series itself was first called “Beyond Personality” and the first talk was entitled “Making and Begetting.” However, on the 24th the text was reprinted in The Listener and it was called “The Map and the Ocean.” This was the first time Lewis’s broadcasts were made available before being collected in a book.

The two different titles for the fourth series debut provides some hints at what was presented by Lewis. He noted the words “begetting” or “begotten” are not used today, but its

RETROSPECT: February 10th – 18th

William OFlaherty Jack in Retrospect, Special Feature

Highlights for the second third of February (10th – 18th) include: The concluding talk from the “What Christians Believe” BBC series, an explanation of the word “membership” in a talk to a group and the publication of a selection of Christian-themed essays.

In 1945 on the 10th Lewis gave a talk, simply called “Membership,” to the Society of St. Alban and St. Sergius in Oxford. It was also published later in the year and is now best found in The Weight of Glory. Lewis explained in his presentation that the word “membership” in the New Testament differs from the way it is used today. Instead of speaking of it in the sense of a group containing like items, the Christian meaning is close to “what we should call organs, things essentially different from, and complementary to, one another.” He also pointed out that believers are

RETROSPECT: February 1st – 9th

William OFlaherty Jack in Retrospect, Special Feature

Highlights for the first third of February (1st – 9th) include: Two more BBC talks from the second series, “What Christians Believe,” an often misunderstood debate and the first book that made Lewis famous.

An idea that started in 1940 led to international fame for Lewis. This is before he gained fame for being the author of The Chronicles of Narnia and even before he was loved as a defender of the Christian faith. A small book containing thirty-one letters set things in motion that made Lewis gain international fame. Although The Screwtape Letters had been released weekly in 1941, it was not until a year later, on the 9th of this month that all of them could be found in one place. The first edition of 2,000 copies sold out even before the date of publication! In fact it was reprinted eight times before the end of 1942. Despite being so popular, it is well known that Lewis actually didn’t enjoy writing it.

RETROSPECT: January 22nd – 31st

William OFlaherty Jack in Retrospect, Special Feature

Highlights for the final third of January (22nd – 31st) include: The publication of one of the last books Lewis wrote, the first meeting of a special Oxford club and the last sermon Lewis ever preached.

Lewis was working on several books before he died in 1963. The first one published posthumously was Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer. It came out on the 27th in 1964. While Lewis is known for writing in a variety of styles, this book is somewhat unique in that though they are present as letters to someone, they were really letters to an imaginary person. Today we have a large collection of actual letters Lewis wrote, so those new to his writings should be careful to note this fact. This leads to the obvious question as to why he would deal with such a serious subject to a fictional person.

RETROSPECT: January 11th – 21st

William OFlaherty Jack in Retrospect, Special Feature

Highlights for the second third of January (11th – 21st) include: The start of his second series of BBC broadcasts, the publication of a fictional serial as a book and the death of a person Lewis lived with for the longest period of his life.

Lewis began the second series of talks on the BBC at the start of this period. “What Christians Believes” was the overall theme of the messages. The initial broadcast was on the 11th in 1942 and before it became better known as content from Mere Christianity it was included in the first published collection of talks, Broadcast Talks (AKA The Case for Christianity in the US). While not originally having a title, this chapter was later called “The Rival Conceptions of God”

RETROSPECT: January 1st – 10th

William OFlaherty Jack in Retrospect, Special Feature

Highlights for the first third of January (1st – 10th) include: Two books published for the first time (one posthumously), two paperback debuts, and initial US versions of two of his books.

If you’ve been reading this series for any three month span, you likely noticed he wrote a good variety of books (some being published after his death). Sometimes I’ve noted when Lewis’s books were released in the US for the first time or when debuting in paperback editions. During this short period a total of six books became available in one of these forms or another.

It was on the 6th in 1944 that The Abolition of Man was released. This is the only book of totally new material during this third segment of January.

RETROSPECTIVE: December 21st – 31st

William OFlaherty Jack in Retrospect, Special Feature

Highlights for the final third of December (21st – 31st) include: An essay about happiness, a special preview of a forthcoming book and two more installments of the eventual The Great Divorce.

Lewis had articles published in a large variety of places during his life. The final shorter work he wrote came out in The Saturday Evening Post less than a month after his death. “We Have No ‘Right to Happiness’” first appeared in their combined December 21-28, 1963 edition. The only other essay he wrote for them was the encore Screwtape piece mentioned last time. This article specifically attacks sexual happiness and was written at the invitation of the editor, Thomas Congdon. It begins with Lewis describing a comment by someone he calls “Clare” that defended the actions of others by stating “they have a right to happiness.”

RETROSPECTIVE: December 11th – 20th

William OFlaherty Jack in Retrospect

Highlights for the second third of December (11th – 20th) include: A follow-up piece to The Screwtape Letters, a warning about seeking to be a part of “the inner ring” and the printed version of Lewis’s final radio broadcast.

Lewis received many requests to write more material found in The Screwtape Letters but he always refused. It was almost twenty years between the time he wrote his first letter to Wormwood and something new from Screwtape would appear. However, on the 19th in 1959 readers of The Saturday Evening Post discovered the senior demon had more to say. “Screwtape Proposes a Toast” has the esteemed devil giving a speech “at the annual dinner of the Tempters’ Training College for young Devils.” After commenting on the poor quality of

RETROSPECTIVE: December 1st – 10th

William OFlaherty Jack in Retrospect

Highlights for the first third of December (1st – 10th) include: The first book in the US collecting Lewis quotes, a collection of essays related to his profession and a book edited by Lewis focused on Charles Williams.

A Mind AwakeIn today’s world it’s not difficult to find a quote attributed to C.S. Lewis. Searching online provides a wide variety of quotations, but not all are actually things Lewis said (which will be the topic of an article I’ll be publishing in 2014). In the “old days” you had to rely on a much more reliable resource known as a book. The first of these actually came out in early 1968 in the UK, but the US version wasn’t published until this month on the 3rd in 1969. A Mind Awake: An Anthology of C.S. Lewis is actually more than a collection of quotes, as some of the selections are lengthier. Also unlike the more recent The Quotable Lewis, which is arranged in alphabetical order, A Mind Awake is divided into ten major topics that has three to five subtopics each.