C. S. Lewis

In 1956, he wedded Joy Davidman, an American writer. She died in 1960 after suffering from cancer.

He died at the age of 64 due to renal failure. He was laid to rest at the churchyard of Holy Trinity Church, Headington, Oxford.

In 2005, a two-hour television biopic of him titled ‘C. S. Lewis: Beyond Narnia’ was made. His role was portrayed by English actor, Anton Rodgers.

Clive Staples Lewis was born in Belfast, Ireland to Albert James Lewis, a solicitor and Florence Augusta, who was the daughter of an Anglican priest.

When he was seven years old, his family relocated to the East Belfast area and as a child he loved to read fantasy stories and was intrigued by imaginary creatures and anthropomorphic animals.

In 1908, he attended the Wynyard School, located in Watford, before which he was privately tutored at home. He later attended the Campbell College but dropped out due to respiratory problems.

Later, he went to a heath-resort in Malvern town, where he attended the Cherbourg House preparatory school. During his stay in Malvern, he became passionate about mythology.

In 1913, he got admitted to the Malvern College, but dropped out as he could not mingle with other fellow students and was privately tutored at home by William T. Kirkpatrick.

In 1919, he came out with his first publication ‘Sprits in Bondage’, a book of poems, which was published under the pen name Clive Hamilton.

In 1925, he was appointed as a lecturer of English literature at the Magdalen College, University of Oxford. He had also previously served as a philosophy tutor at the University College of Oxford.

In 1933, his fictional fantasy novel ‘The Pilgrim's Regress’, which was one of his first published works of prose fiction, was published by J.M. Dent and Sons in the United Kingdom.

In 1936, his non-fictional book titled ‘The Allegory of Love: A Study in Medieval Tradition’ was published. The book was an account of how love was perceived in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance period.

On April 27, 1939 his work ‘The Personal Heresy’, which was a collection of articles written by him and Eustace Tillyard, a British scholar, was published by the Oxford University Press.

His ground-breaking children’s fantasy series ‘The Chronicles of Narnia’ has been made into three commercially successful films in 2005, 2008 and 2010. The films were one of the highest grossing films of all time and it has also been adapted for BBC Radio 4.