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This book examines eight works by Lewis that we have termed “neglected.” Each chapter focuses on one work, and the book is organized chronologically according to their original publication dates. For the student of Lewis who would like to take these studies even further, in an appendix we have also included additional works that we were not able to include here.

The Allegory of Love traces the development of the medieval love allegory as Lewis follows it through the seminal works of an age. He follows the code of chivalry with its emphasis on courage, humility, the religion of love, and adultery. This was the book that established Lewis’s academic reputation.

The Personal Heresy is a debate between Lewis and Elizabethan literary scholar E. M. W. Tillyard over whether or not the personality of the author needs to be known in order to interpret his or her work.

Arthurian Torso examines a cycle of poems telling the story of Camelot from the perspective of the Court Poet, Taliessin, written by Lewis’s friend and fellow Inkling, Charles Williams. The poems are not easily accessible, but the theology and literary point of view is scintillating. As Dante needed a Virgil to guide him through the inferno, so the average reader needs a guide through the thought of Charles Williams.

English Literature in the Sixteenth Century excluding Drama was Lewis’s magnum opus. It is the ripe fruit of an eighteen-year project that occupied much of his mind and thought. To produce this book, Lewis read every book written in English in the sixteenth century, as well as every book translated into English at that time. It not only reveals the depth of Lewis’s thought, and his brilliant and winsome literary style, but the breadth of his grasp and understanding. Furthermore, this book reveals the background of the full and fertile mind that Lewis brought to all of his other work. It is an important book in the Lewis corpus and one that serious Lewis readers ought to know about.

Studies in Words examines word histories and how their meanings develop over time. Understanding their development is a source of rich treasure. The finding of treasure often requires a map, so Lewis provides that map for all who want to understand the literature beyond their own age. This guidebook helps us better understand old books through knowing the original meanings of words as well as the elements that contribute to change in meaning in language. It also details Lewis’s approach to responsibility with regard to language.

Written toward the end of Lewis’s life, An Experiment in Criticism represents his mature literary critical thought. He analyzes a book based on how it is read rather than simply judging it to be good or bad. He divides readers into two categories: receivers and users. The work examines the difference between books that produce receivers whose lives are enriched forever because of their encounter with these texts and those who remain merely users of literature and miss out on its riches. This book shows how literary experience can widen our views and enrich our understanding of the world.

The Discarded Image is the final edition of a series of lectures Lewis gave at Oxford University titled The Prolegomena to Medieval and Renaissance Literature. One of the last things he wrote before he died, it was published in the year following his death. This work is indispensable to knowing the background of medieval literature and to understanding Lewis’s fascination with that period. Lewis shows that the medieval worldview could not be a last word about reality, and we see in this book a warning that the worldview of any age must equally give way to the demands of new discoveries. All ages will produce what will necessarily become discarded images, interesting in their own right, but insufficient to describe the full complexity of the world in which we find ourselves. This work also provides an essential key to understanding and appreciating Lewis’s fiction.

This brings us to Selected Literary Essays. Throughout the essays in this book that is little read today, we see how, for Lewis, questions lead to answers which lead to discoveries. This promotes awe and wonder and sometimes, in Lewis’s case, worship. The book shows the width of his tastes, and anybody who wants to break out of narrow self-referential approaches to life would benefit from these essays.

It is our hope that The Neglected C. S. Lewis will serve as a starting point to whet the interest of those who love C. S. Lewis but are not familiar with these works. Our goal is to give you some of the tools for thinking about his diverse writings in new ways. We hope that it will begin to fill the vacancy that a lack of promotion and awareness has created and will revitalize interest in the ideas contained within the books. We urge you to be open to the difficulty of the content, to be patient with the slow process of reading, re-reading, making notes, and doing additional research. We can attest that these works are worth it not only because of the value in better understanding Lewis, but to open up new worlds and ideas to be explored that can deepen our faith and give us, as Lewis writes, the ability to see with others’ eyes so that our own worlds may be widened.

Lewis’s renown was a consequence of his capacity to sequester himself in focused study and academic work.

Used by permission of the Marion E. Wade Center, Wheaton College, Wheaton, IL.

Magdalen College, Oxford, from Addison’s Walk, where Lewis was a Fellow and Tutor in English Literature from 1925 to 1954.

Photo courtesy of Mark Neal.

1 Lewis, A Preface to Paradise Lost (New York: Oxford University Press, 1954), 63.

2 Lewis, Introduction to St. Athanasius on the Incarnation (London: A. R. Mowbray & Co., 1963), 5.

3 Lewis, Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Literature, “Edmund Spenser” (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 138.

4 Lewis, The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996), 29.

5 Lewis, Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1964), 75.

6 Lewis, God in the Dock, “Christian Apologetics” (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1970), 93.

7 Lewis, The Weight of Glory, “Is Theology Poetry?” 106.