- “If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.”
- ―C. S. Lewis[1]
C.S. Lewis (born Clive Staples Lewis and called Jack by his friends) (November 29, 1898 - November 22, 1963) was a good friend of J.R.R. Tolkien, and the author of The Chronicles of Narnia.
Lewis was a member of the small literary society called The Inklings, along with Tolkien and, briefly, Tolkien's son Christopher. One mutual friend of Lewis and Tolkien, from their academic circles, was George Sayer.
Similarities with Tolkien's works[]
Tolkien and Lewis are known to have, while writing their respective books, shared their "work in progress" with each other with objection to the other "borrowing". In the preface to That Hideous Strength, Lewis makes an explicit reference to Tolkien's Númenor (which Lewis spelled "Numinor") and linked it with the plot of his own book: The magic of the wizard, Merlinus Ambrosius, an important character in the book, is mentioned as being derived from that of magical refugees who arrived in prehistoric Britain from the sunk Númenor/Atlantis.
The chapter "Mount Doom" of The Return of the King, in which occurs the climatic final battle for the ring between Frodo and Gollum, is a close parallel to the battle between Elwin Ransom and the Un-man in Lewis' Perelandra. In both, a battle takes place in an underground chamber near a chasm where volcanic fire is burning; both battles end with an antagonist falling into fire and being utterly consumed; and in both books this outcome is vital in saving a world from evil's future domination.
Some entities share similar names, for example, in The Lord of the Rings there is an inn named "The Prancing Pony" located in Bree. In C.S. Lewis' Narnia, there is a prancing, talking pony named Bree. In Middle-earth there are the Ettenmoors, and in Narnia a land called Ettinsmoor.
Lewis' That Hideous Strength includes an evil scientist who hates trees and wantonly destroys them - resembling Saruman's conduct in the Shire and towards Fangorn Forest.
Scholarship & documentaries[]
The friendship and common intellectual pursuits of C.S. Lewis and Tolkien are the focus of the documentary Tolkien & Lewis: Myth, Imagination & the Quest for Meaning, and are discussed in sections of most other documentaries about Tolkien. Their friendship and pursuits are also well recounted or studied in books such as The Fellowship: The Literary Lives of the Inklings (2015), Christian Mythmakers (2014), On the Shoulders of Hobbits (2012). The Company They Keep: C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien as Writers in Community (2007), and Humphrey Carpenter's The Inklings: C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien and Their Friends (1979).
Notable scholars of C. S. Lewis include Michael Ward and Alister McGrath. Due to their friendship, shared Christian faith, and passion for fantasy, scholarship of Lewis and Tolkien frequently overlap.
