C. S. Lewis Biography Collection (2 vols.)

by Harry Lee Poe

Publisher:

Crossway

, 2019–2021

Overview

Lewis expert Harry Lee Poe unfolds young Jack’s key relationships, hobbies, spiritual conflicts, decisions, desires, and dreams. Along the way, Poe points out where these themes reappear in Lewis’s later works— bringing to life the importance of his conversion and his surprising discovery of joy. Poe unfolds watershed years in Lewis’s life, offering readers a unique perspective on his conversion, his friendships with well-known Christians such as J. R. R. Tolkien and Dorothy L. Sayers, and his development from an opponent of Christianity to one of its most ardent defenders.

Key Features

• Focuses on Lewis’s early interest in literature, his key relationships, and intense pursuit of joy
• Offers an insightful look at the Inklings, including the important role their meetings played in Lewis’s life and writings
• Chronicles C.S. Lewis’s formative friendships with people like J.R.R. Tolkien, Nevill Coghill, and Owen Barfield and the influence they had on his development

Becoming C. S. Lewis: A Biography of Young Jack Lewis

• Author: Harry Lee Poe
• Publisher: Crossway
• Publication Date: 2019
• Pages: 312

During his youth, the boy who would become C. S. Lewis formed his most basic impressions and tastes regarding music, art, literature, religion, sports, friendship, imagination, education, war, and more. The issues young “Jack” Lewis wrestled with drove him toward the foundation on which his life would be built. His childhood interests, influences, longings, struggles, and even failures prepared him to engage his gifts as a writer, teacher, and friend.

Lewis expert Harry Lee Poe unfolds young Jack’s key relationships, hobbies, spiritual conflicts, decisions, desires, and dreams. Along the way, Poe points out where these themes reappear in Lewis’s later works— bringing to life the importance of his conversion and his surprising discovery of joy.

Many fans of C. S. Lewis will savor having so much detail on his early years gathered together in one biography. This portrait of an artist as a young man is based on remarkably rich information that we have concerning Lewis’s formative experiences and influences. Harry Lee Poe adds much helpful context and commentary.

—George M. Marsden, author, C. S. Lewis’s “Mere Christianity”: A Biography

The Making of C. S. Lewis: From Atheist to Apologist

• Author: Harry Lee Poe
• Publisher: Crossway
• Publication Date: 2021
• Pages: 400

At the end of World War I, young C. S. Lewis was a devout atheist about to begin his studies at Oxford. In the three decades that followed, he would establish himself as one of the most influential writers and scholars of modern times, undergoing a radical conversion to Christianity that would transform his life and his work.

Scholar Harry Lee Poe unfolds these watershed years in Lewis’s life, offering readers a unique perspective on his conversion, his friendships with well-known Christians such as J. R. R. Tolkien and Dorothy L. Sayers, and his development from an opponent of Christianity to one of its most ardent defenders.

Detailed and fluent, this second volume of Poe’s trilogy is a triple helix of biography, literary criticism, and spiritual portraiture that will reward any reader, from the generally curious to the experienced Lewis scholar. Poe’s narrative vision of Lewis’s conversion and apologetic commitment, his arguments along the way, and the nuances of his spiritual insights are, respectively, engaging, challenging, and fascinating. Highly recommended.

—James Como, author, C. S. Lewis: A Very Short Introduction