The Discarded Image

Clive Staples Lewis was born in Belfast, Ireland, but he spent most of his life in England. Though he was raised Anglican, Lewis became an atheist when he was a teenager. He attended Oxford University but almost immediately became a soldier in World War I. He returned to Oxford after the war was over and completed his studies, after which he began teaching English Literature at Magdalen College. Around 1926, Lewis met fellow writer and scholar J. R. R. Tolkien, the man who would go on to write The Lord of the Rings. The two developed a lasting friendship, and in 1931, after years of consideration and debate, Lewis converted to Christianity once more. His conversion was reluctant, as he had many concerns about the inherent truth of Christian doctrine. However, after his conversion, he became known for his Christian apologetic writing, the most famous title of which was Mere Christianity (1952). 

While Lewis was a prolific writer, he is best known for penning the seven novels of The Chronicles of Narnia between 1949 and 1954. Although the novels are ostensibly children’s fantasy, they incorporate many Christian elements and are allegorical in nature. They also draw on the same mythical creatures and ways of understanding the world that Lewis describes in detail in The Discarded Image. Like many scholars of his time, Lewis had extensive knowledge of Latin, Greek, and other European languages, and this expertise is evident in his treatment of a vast range of classical and medieval sources in The Discarded Image. Lewis died of kidney failure in 1963, coincidentally on the same day as John F. Kennedy and science fiction writer Aldous Huxley. The Discarded Image, which was adapted from a series of lectures that Lewis gave at Oxford, was one of several works that were published posthumously.