November 22 marks the death anniversary of one of the greatest Christian authors, C.S. Lewis. Lewis was born in Belfast into a Christian family, but became an atheist as a young man after the death of his mother. He remained an atheist into his thirties, trying to prove the existence of God through science and literature. By the time of his conversion, he was a professor at Magdalen College at Oxford, and a friend of J.R.R. Tolkien and William Butler Yeats.Once converted, Lewis devoted his time to writing, becoming well-known for his nonfiction commentaries on faith, such as Mere Christianity, and works of fiction including The Chronicles of Narnia and The Screwtape Letters. At the age of 60, Lewis met and fell in love with American writer Joy Gresham, who had converted to Christianity after reading his works. The two married, but Gresham succumbed to cancer in 1960. Lewis wrote even more to cope with his grief for his wife and the decline of his own health. He passed away on November 22, 1963.
For more information on C.S. Lewis, please see BBC Religion and Ethics Christianity or C.S. Lewis: A Life by Michael White, copyright 2004 by Carroll and Graf Publishers. Exhaustive information about Lewis's literary works can be found in The C.S. Lewis Readers' Encyclopedia by Jeffrey D. Schultz, copyright 1998 by Zondervan Publishing.
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