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C.S. Lewis in America: Readings and Reception, 1935-1947
InterVarsity Press
2023
Between 1935 and 1947, the Oxford scholar C.S. Lewis published a number of literary
works plus several works of imaginative writing and Christian exposition that
included his Broadcast Talks (which were published together in 1952 as Mere
Christianity), The Abolition of Man, The Great Divorce, Screwtape Letters and the
Ransom Trilogy. In Chapter One, historian Mark Noll documents that the earliest
responses to Lewis, starting in 1935, were generally from Roman Catholic authors
writing in Church journals, who were, overall, quite positive with only occasional
doctrinal quibbles. Mainstream Protestant notice began in earnest with the
publication of Screwtape Letters in 1943 and was almost uniformly positive, albeit
with The Christian Century exhibiting a “patronizing” attitude to Lewis. Evangelicals
were the last and most cautious in their response to the writings of Lewis. Positive
early reviewers, both Catholic and Protestant, included Thomas Merton, Bishop
Fulton Sheen, W.H. Auden and literary scholar Chad Walsh who wrote the first book
on Lewis and his writing. Noll points out that none of these early reviews were
“earthshaking” but, in sharp contrast with today, do demonstrate that in the 1940s
the “gatekeepers” of American public opinion could still positively respond to skilful
writing even if it possessed Christian themes. The publication of Screwtape Letters in
1943 did capture a slice of the public imagination as seen in the Time cover story on
Lewis in 1947. What made Lewis so unique and incapable of replication? J.I. Packer
thought that the “secret” of his “great piercing power” resided in Lewis’s “blend of
logic and imagination.” What lessons can we learn from Lewis for today? Noll
acknowledges the vast cultural shifts that have taken place since Lewis’s time but
believes that still we have much to learn from both the “savvy” and “unassuming”
way in which Lewis approached his craft. Noll points out that Lewis was most
concerned about the soul of the writer rather than the success of the writing.
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