A Selective Bibliography of C. S. Lewis's Works

AUTOBIOGRAPHY
A Grief Observed (1961)
Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life (1955)

CHILDREN'S FICTION
The Horse and His Boy (1954)
The Last Battle: A Story for Children (1956)
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe: A Story for Children (1950)
The Magician's Nephew (1955)
Prince Caspian: The Return to Narnia (1951)
The Voyage of the "Dawn Treader" (1952)
The Silver Chair (1953)

ADULT FICTION
"The Dark Tower" and Other Stories (1977), ed. by Walter Hopper
The Great Divorce: A Drama (1945)
Out of the Silent Planet (1938)
Perelandra: A Novel (1943)
The Pilgrim's Regress: An Allegorical Apology for Christianity, Reason and Romanticism (1933)
The Screwtape Letters (1942) [with Screwtape Proposes a Toast (1961)]
That Hideous Strength: A Modern Fairy-Tale for Grown-Ups (1945)
Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold (1956)

NONFICTION
The Abolition of Man; or; Reflections on Education with Special Reference to the Teaching of English in the Upper Forms of Schools (1943)
The Allegory of Love: A Study in Medieval Tradition (1936)
Beyond Personality: The Christian Idea of God (1944)
Broadcast Talks [in America, The Case for Christianity] (1942)
Christian Behaviour A Further Series of Broadcast Talks (1943)
The Discarded Image: An Introduction to Medieval and Renaissance Literature (1964)
English Literature in the Sixteenth Century, Excluding Drama (1954)
An Experiment in Criticism (1961)
The Four Loves (1960)
Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer (1964)
Mere Christianity (1952)
Miracles: A Preliminary Study (1947)
The Personal Heresy: A Controversy (1939), with E. N. W. Tillyard
A Preface to "Paradise Lost" (1942)
The Problem of Pain (1940)
Reflections on the Psalms (1958)
Spenser's Images of Life (1967), ed. by Alasdair Fowler
Studies in Words (1960)

LETTERS
Letters to an American Lady (1967), ed. by Clyde S. Kilby
Letters to Children (1985), ed. by Lyle W. Dorsett and Marjorie Lamp Mead
Letters of C. S. Lewis (1966), ed. by Warren H. Lewis
They Stand Together The Letters of C. S. Lewis to Arthur Greeves, 1914-1963 (1979), ed. by Walter Hooper

ESSAY COLLECTIONS BY C. S. LEWIS
Christian Reflections (1967), ed. by Walter Hooper
Fern-Seed and Elephants and Other Essays on Christianity (1975), ed. by Walter Hooper
God in the Dock: Essays on Theology and Ethics (1970) [Undeceptions in England] ed. by Walter Hooper
Of Other Worlds: Essays and Stories (1966), ed. by Walter Hooper
Present Concerns (1986), ed. by Walter Hooper
Rehabilitations and Other Essays (1939)
Selected Literary Essays (1969), ed. by Walter Hooper
Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Literature (1966), ed. by Walter Hooper
They Asked for a Paper Papers and Addresses (1962)
Transposition and Other Addresses (1949) [The Weight of Glory in America]
The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses (1980), expanded and edited by Walter Hooper
The World's Last Night and Other Essays (1960)

POETRY
Dymer (1926) [originally published under pseudonym Clive Hamilton]
Narrative Poems (1969), ed. by Walter Hooper
Poems (1964), ed. by Walter Hooper
Spirits in Bondage: A Cycle of Lyrics (1919) [originally published under pseudonym Clive Hamilton]

BOOKS EDITED BY C. S. LEWIS
Arthurian Torso (1948)
Essays Presented to Charles Williams (1947)
George MacDonald: An Anthology (1946)

A Selected Bibliography of (Mostly) Useful Secondary Works about C. S. Lewis

Adey, Lionel. C. S. Lewis's "Great War" with Owen Barfield (1978)
Aeschliman, Michael D. The Restitution of Man: C. S. Lewis and the Case Against Scientism (1983)
Arnott, Anne. The Secret Country of C. S. Lewis (1975)
Carnell, Corbin Scott. Bright Shadow of Reality: C. S. Lewis and the Feeling Intellect (1974)
Carpenter, Humphrey. The Inklings (1979)
Christopher, Joe R. C. S Lewis (1987)
Como, James T., ed. C. S. Lewis at the Breakfast Table (1979)
Cunningham, Richard B. C. S. Lewis: Defender of the Faith (1967)
Dorsett, Lyle W. And God Came In: The Extraordinary Story of Joy Davidman, Her Life and Marriage to C. S. Lewis (1983)
Downing, David. Planets in Peril (1992).
Duriez, Colin. The C. S. Lewis Handbook, 1990.
Edwards, Bruce L., Jr. A Rhetoric of Reading C S Lewis's Defense of Western Literacy (1986)
---. A Taste of the Pineapple: Essays on CSL as Reader, Critic, and Imaginative Writer (1988)
Ford, Paul F. Companion to Narnia (1991)
Gibb, Jocelyn, ed., Light on C. S. Lewis (1965)
Gibson, Evan K. C. S. Lewis, Spinner of Tales: A Guide to His Fiction (1980)
Glover, Donald F. C. S. Lewis: The Art of Enchantment (1981)
Green Roger Lancelyn, and Walter Hooper, C. S. Lewis: A Biography (1974)
Gresham, Douglas. Lenten Lands (1988)
Hannay, Margaret Patterson. C. S. Lewis (1981)
Holmer, Paul L. C. S. Lewis: The Shape of His Faith and Thought (1976)
Howard, Thomas. C. S. Lewis: Man of Letters (1980)
Keefe, Caroline. C. S. Lewis: Speaker and Teacher (1971)
Kilby, Clyde S. The Christian World of C. S. Lewis (1964)
---. Images of Salvation in the Fiction of C. S. Lewis (1978)
---. ed., A Mind Awake: An Anthology of C. S. Lewis (1968)
---. and Marjorie Lamp Mead, eds., Brothers and Friends: The Diaries of Major Warren Hamilton Lewis (1982)
---. C. S. Lewis: Images of His World (1973), with Douglas Gilbert
Kreeft, Peter. Between Heaven and Hell (1982)
---. C. S. Lewis: A Critical Essay (1969)
---. The Shadowlands of C. S. Lewis (1994)
---C. S. Lewis for the Third Millennium (1993)
Lindskoog, Kathryn A. C. S. Lewis: Mere Christian (1973) [Revised 1987]
---. Finding the Landlord: A Guidebook to CSL's Pilgrim's Regress (1995)
---. The Lion of Judah in Never-Never Land: God, Man and Nature in C. S. Lewis's Narnia Tales (1973)
Martindale, Wayne, and Jerry Root. The Quotable Lewis (1989)
Meilaender, Gilbert. The Taste for the Other: The Social and Ethical Thought of C. S. Lewis (1978)
Payne, Leanne. Real Presence: Incarnational Reality in the Works of C. S. Lewis (1994)
Sayer, George. Jack: A Life of C. S. Lewis (1994)
Schakel, Peter . Reading with the Heart: The Way into Narnia (1979)
---. Reason and Imagination in C. S. Lewis: A Study of Till We Have Faces (1984)
Walsh, Chad. C. S. Lewis: Apostle to the Skeptics (1949)

A Shamelessly Opinionated Best/Worst List of Lewisian Studies

THE FIVE BEST WORKS BY C. S. LEWIS

1. The Great Divorce. Lewis's mentor, George MacDonald, takes him a tour of hell-and heaven.
 
2. The Problem of Pain. Lewis helpfully defines the relevance of suffering and of hell to human life.
 
3. The Abolition of Man. Lewis's dead-on prophecy of the demise of objective value in a postmodern, Western world.
 
4. Mere Christianity. The most lucid and thoughtful inquiry into orthodox Christianity in the 20th Century.
 
5. Till We Have Faces. Lewis's own favorite work; how can it not be on this list, despite its difficulty and departure from his other works?
 
 
THE FIVE BEST WORKS ABOUT C. S. LEWIS AS OF JULY, 1996
1. Jack: A Life of C. S. Lewis, George Sayer. The most sympathetic and readable biography to date.
 
2. C. S. Lewis in Context, Doris T. Myers. An insightful look at the cultural context in which Lewis wrote.
 
3. Planets in Peril, David Downing. The epitome of what all Lewis scholarship should look like--a scholarly yet accessible treatment of the Trilogy.
 
4. The Taste for the Other, Gilbert Meilaender. A brilliant treatment of the social and ethical implications of CSL's thought.
 
5. C. S. Lewis for the Third Millennium, Peter Kreeft. One of many well-informed and incisive books about Lewis by his most helpful living interpreter.

 

THE FIVE WORST WORKS ABOUT C. S. LEWIS

1. C. S. Lewis: A Biography, A. N. Wilson. The chronology may be the only thing right in this pedantic manual of ill-conceived character assassination.
 
2. C. S. Lewis and the Search for Rational Religion, John Beversluis. The most charitable thing that can be said here is that it is out of print and will likely remain such.
 
3. The Skeleton in the Closet, David Holbrook. A thoroughly unconvincing Freudian interpretation of everything Lewis ever said or did, a horoscope not a monograph.
 
4. C. S. Lewis on Scripture, Michael Christensen. This early, labored work about Lewis's views of inerrancy proves he couldn't have been a good Southern Baptist; so?
 
5. Shadowlands, William Nicholson. How could a well-meaning man have gotten so much wrongheadedness into just one script?
 
 
 
 
Back to Lewis Resources Page