His Books, and Where to Start

Of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh. Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man. ECCLESIASTES 12:12–13

Lewis wrote a great deal, in many forms, and it is not always easy to know where to begin. His books remain in copyright and in print, and they are widely available from their publishers, in libraries and second-hand; none of them is reproduced here. What follows is a short guide, arranged for usefulness rather than chronology, with a suggested order of reading. At the end is a second guide, to the older writers Lewis read and loved, many of whom are in the Ochorus library.

Begin here

Mere Christianity (1952). The natural starting point. Drawn from his wartime broadcast talks, it moves from the moral law to the claims of Christ, through Christian behaviour to the doctrine of the Trinity and the new life of the believer. It is the book behind chapters four to eight of this companion. Read it slowly, a chapter at a sitting.

The Screwtape Letters (1942). The devil’s-eye view of temptation, short, witty and searching. Read it after Mere Christianity, a letter at a time, and expect to recognise yourself. A later short piece, Screwtape Proposes a Toast, can be found in some editions.

The Great Divorce (1945). A short dream-story about heaven, hell and the choices that lead to each. Read it after the first two, and see chapter seventeen of this book for the points that need weighing.

For hard questions

The Problem of Pain (1940). His careful, reasoned account of suffering and the goodness of God. Read it before suffering comes, with the cautions of chapter ten in mind.

A Grief Observed (1961). His raw notebooks after the death of his wife. Read it when grief has come, and know that you are not alone.

Miracles (1947, revised 1960). His most philosophical popular book, on whether miracles can happen and on the Incarnation as the Grand Miracle. Demanding but rewarding.

The Abolition of Man (1943). A short, prophetic book on objective moral value and the danger of educating people to believe that goodness is a matter of taste. Best read alongside its novel counterpart, That Hideous Strength.

For the Christian life

The Four Loves (1960). On affection, friendship, romantic love and charity. Wise, humane and searching.

Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer (1964). His last book, a warm and practical conversation about prayer. Read it with chapter twelve of this book in mind.

Reflections on the Psalms (1958). A personal and often illuminating book on the Psalter, written for ordinary readers. It is also the book in which his view of Scripture’s inspiration is most clearly stated; see chapter fourteen.

The Weight of Glory. His great sermon of 1941 on heaven and the eternal worth of every neighbour, usually published in a collection of the same name with several other addresses. One of the finest short things he wrote.

God in the Dock (1970). A posthumous collection of essays on theology and ethics, including several of his shorter pieces on the Gospels, miracles and prayer.

His own story

Surprised by Joy (1955). The story of his early life and conversion, up to the night he came to faith in Christ. Read it after Mere Christianity, to see the man behind the arguments.

The Pilgrim’s Regress (1933). His first Christian book, an allegory of his own journey modelled on Bunyan’s. Dense with allusion and harder going than his later work, but rewarding for those who love The Pilgrim’s Progress.

His stories

The Chronicles of Narnia (1950–1956). Seven books for children, beloved by readers of every age. There has been much debate about the best order to read them in; the order in which they were first published, beginning with The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, is the order in which Lewis’s first readers met them and is a good one for a first reading. Read them aloud if you can. Keep chapter fourteen of this book in mind, and chapter seventeen for The Last Battle.

The space trilogy: Out of the Silent Planet (1938), Perelandra (1943) and That Hideous Strength (1945). Imaginative stories of other worlds and of our own, best read in order.

Till We Have Faces (1956). His last novel, and the one he thought his best. A retelling of an ancient myth about love, jealousy and the stripping of the soul before God. Demanding, and for mature readers.

His scholarship

Lewis was a scholar first, and readers who want to see the mind behind the popular books may enjoy The Allegory of Love (1936), A Preface to Paradise Lost (1942), An Experiment in Criticism (1961) and The Discarded Image (1964), a lucid introduction to the medieval picture of the universe that he loved.

Letters and lives

His Collected Letters, edited by Walter Hooper in three large volumes, show the patient pastoral care he gave to strangers for thirty years. For his life, Roger Lancelyn Green and Walter Hooper’s C. S. Lewis: A Biography (1974) was written by friends; George Sayer’s Jack (1988), by a former pupil; and Alister McGrath’s C. S. Lewis — A Life (2013) is the fullest modern account. Humphrey Carpenter’s The Inklings (1978) describes the circle of friends who met in his rooms. The Ochorus author page carries a shorter biography.

A suggested order

For a first year with Lewis: Mere Christianity; The Screwtape Letters; The Great Divorce; Surprised by Joy; The Four Loves; The Problem of Pain; and then, as the need arises, A Grief Observed or Letters to Malcolm. Read The Chronicles of Narnia alongside, perhaps aloud to a child.

Read what Lewis read

Lewis insisted that his readers should not stop at him. He urged them, again and again, to go back to the older books he had learned from. Here are some of the writers he loved, and where they can be found.

George MacDonald (1824–1905). The Scottish writer whom Lewis regarded as his master, and from whose works he said he had drawn in almost everything he wrote. It was MacDonald’s Phantastes that first touched Lewis’s imagination in 1916; Lewis later compiled an anthology of passages from MacDonald’s sermons, and made him the guide in The Great Divorce. Readers should know that MacDonald hoped for the final salvation of all, and rejected the teaching that Christ bore the penalty of sin in our place; Lewis loved him without following him in the first, and evangelical readers will want to weigh both. MacDonald’s Unspoken Sermons, all three series, are in the Ochorus library; Phantastes and his books for children are also in the public domain.

G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936). His Orthodoxy and, above all, The Everlasting Man, which Lewis read in his twenties while still an unbeliever, helped Lewis to see that the Christian account of history made sense. Lewis credited it with a large part in his return to faith. Both Orthodoxy and The Everlasting Man are in the Ochorus library.

Athanasius of Alexandria. On the Incarnation, the fourth-century defence of the deity of Christ, for whose English translation Lewis wrote the introduction discussed in chapter six. It is in the Ochorus library, with Athanasius’ Life of Antony, and Ochorus’s own companion, The Key Teachings of Athanasius of Alexandria.

Augustine of Hippo. His Confessions, the great story of a restless heart finding its rest in God, stands behind much of what Lewis wrote about longing and pride. The Confessions and Augustine’s Enchiridion are in the Ochorus library, with The Key Teachings of Augustine of Hippo.

John Bunyan. The Pilgrim’s Progress gave Lewis the shape of his first Christian book, and late in life he wrote an appreciative essay on Bunyan. The Pilgrim’s Progress, with editions for children and teens, and Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners are in the Ochorus library, with The Key Teachings of John Bunyan.

Thomas à Kempis. The Imitation of Christ was among the old devotional books Lewis commended in his introduction to Athanasius. It is in the Ochorus library.

William Law. A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life, which Lewis read and admired, is a searching summons to give the whole of life to God. It is in the Ochorus library.

Richard Baxter. The Puritan from whom Lewis borrowed the phrase that gave Mere Christianity its title. Baxter’s A Call to the Unconverted and The Reformed Pastor are in the Ochorus library, with The Key Teachings of Richard Baxter.

Boethius. The Consolation of Philosophy, written in prison in the sixth century, shaped Lewis’s thinking about time and eternity, and he drew on it in Mere Christianity and wrote about it in The Discarded Image.

Among the poets, Lewis loved Dante, Spenser, Milton and George Herbert, the last of whom he admired even before his conversion. All are in the public domain, and all repay the effort.

Three counsels for reading him

Read him with the Bible open. Lewis claimed no authority of his own, and he would have been the first to send you back to Scripture. Where he is plainly scriptural, receive it gladly. Where he goes beyond it, weigh it.

Read him slowly. His sentences are so clear that they are easily hurried. Take a chapter at a time, and think about it before you move on.

And read him as he would have wanted: not as an end in himself, but as a signpost to Christ. Close the book, and go to the One he pointed to.

Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. JOHN 14:6