Customer Reviews for HarperOne The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis, Volume 2 : Books, Broadcasts, and the War, 1931-1949

C.S. Lewis was a prolific letter writer, and his personal correspondence reveals much for his private life, reflections, friendships, and the progress of this thought. This second of a three volume collection contains the letters Lewis wrote after his conversion to Christianity, as he began a lifetime of serious writing. Here we encounter a surge of letters in response to a new audience of laypeople who wrote to him after the great success of this BBC radio broadcasts during World War II--talks that would ultimately become his masterwork, Mere Christianity.

Volume II begins with C.S. Lewis writing his first major work of literary history, The Allegory of Love, which established him as a scholar with imaginative power. These letters trace his creative journey and recount his new circle of friends, "The Inklings," who meet regularly to share their writing.

This volume includes Lewis's correspondence with great writers such as Owen Barfield, Arthur C. Clarke, Sheldon Vanauken, and Dom Bede Griffiths. The letters address many of Lewis's interests--theology, literary criticism, poetry, fantasy, and children's stories--as well as reveal his relationships with close friends and family. But what is apparent throughout this volume is how this quiet bachelor professor in England touched the lives of many through an amazing discipline of personal correspondence. Hardcover, 1132 pages.