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Portrait of C.S. Lewis by Artur Lopes
Brilliant, imaginative, creative, scholarly, and a pipe smoker who loved Capstan and Three Nuns, C.S. Lewis has made an indelible contribution to literature, Christian apologetics, and world culture. He is the author of more than 30 books that continue to enthrall readers almost 60 years after his death, including the highly influential Mere Christianity, exploring the logical validity of Christianity; The Screwtape Letters, a series of letters between devils discussing the struggle of good and evil; Out of the Silent Planet, about the dynamics of civilization/utopia and human-nature/morality; and most recognizably, The Chronicles of Narnia, a series of seven children's fantasy books that allegorically inspect themes of salvation, redemption, courage, and faith. His books have sold more than 100 million copies and the films based on those books have grossed over 1.5 billion dollars — not bad for a teacher of Medieval and Renaissance literature with a preference for straight Billiards.
Born in 1898 in Belfast, Ireland, Clive Staples Lewis in his youth enjoyed anthropomorphic stories with animal protagonists, especially the works of Beatrix Potter, and he wrote and illustrated animal stories of his own. He had a thirst for books and his father's large library was a wonderland to him. Educated by private tutors until the death of his mother when he was nine, he was then sent by his father to a series of schools, the first two of which did not hold him for long, though that was through no fault of his own. The first closed from a lack of students and he left the second shortly after starting due to respiratory health issues before enrolling in a college preparatory school in Malvern, Worcestershire, a spa town in England.
Lewis' Influences
While in Malvern, Lewis became interested in reading mythology, which would later influence many of his writings. He also abandoned his Christian faith and declared himself an atheist. At age 15 he enrolled in Malvern College, staying a year before leaving to study privately with the former headmaster of Northern Ireland's Lurgan College, who was also his father's previous tutor. He developed a love for Norse mythology, epic poetry, opera, Greek literature, and the Celtic poetry of W.B. Yeats, whom he later met on two occasions. His appreciation for the world's natural beauty expanded during this time and would become evident throughout his writings.
His appreciation for the world's natural beauty expanded
He began studying at Oxford University in the summer of 1917, and by the next year had been commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Somerset Light Infantry of the British Army to fight in WWI, arriving in the Somme Valley of France. After five months of trench warfare, his poetry reflected a weariness in regard to the horrors of war: "Come let us curse our Master ere we die / For all our hopes in endless ruin lie."
The Effects of War
Lewis had lost most of his friends in this campaign that saw half of its participants killed or wounded. His position came under bombardment in the French village of Riez du Vinage. Artillery was providing cover to stage a counterattack on the German forces along the Western Front, and German artillery returned fire. A shell exploded near him, killing his sergeant and peppering Lewis with shrapnel in his left leg, wrist, and rib cage, and puncturing his lung.
He realized that he was not breathing and felt no emotion about that circumstance, believing that this was his death. He was dragged from the battleground. Joseph Laconte writes in the National Review:
... the war and its aftermath seem to have stirred Lewis's spiritual longings. On a train ride to a London hospital to recover from his wounds, he was seized by a sense of the transcendent as he beheld the natural beauty of the English countryside. "I think I never enjoyed anything so much as that scenery — all the white in the hedges, and the fields so full of buttercups that in the distance they seemed to be of solid gold," he wrote a friend. "You see the conviction is gaining ground on me that after all Spirit does exist. I fancy that there is Something right outside time and place.... You see how frankly I admit that my views have changed."
He did not immediately reject his atheism and he did not become a pacifist; he believed in the necessity of war to combat evil, a theme of his Narnia stories that would find considerable criticism. However, his experiences in the war contributed to his resurgence of faith, as Laconte relates:
... the intimate experience of combat helped Lewis to imagine the mythical Narnia, a kingdom that bears the wounds — and the consolations — of a world at war. Its noble king, Aslan the Great Lion, is both a warrior and a peacemaker. "This is my real country!" Lewis wrote in The Last Battle. "This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it till now."
He returned to Oxford in 1918 and resumed his studies. A gifted student and thinker, he received exemplary grades: a First (British bachelor's degree-grading denoting highest honor) in Greek and Latin literature in 1920, a First in Ancient History and Philosophy in 1922, and a First in English in 1923, after which he was appointed an English Fellow at Magdalen College at Oxford University.
Lewis and Tolkien
He met and became friends with J.R.R. Tolkien, who also taught at Oxford, was a Christian, and had likewise experienced the war at the Western Front. Tolkien's influence and Lewis' interest in the writings of George MacDonald, a Scottish author and Christian Minister who wrote influential fantasy, as well as the writings of G.K. Chesterton eventually brought him back to his faith, but it was a long struggle. He writes about his conversion in Surprised by Joy (1955):
You must picture me alone in that room in Magdalen, night after night, feeling, whenever my mind lifted even for a second from my work, the steady, unrelenting approach of Him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet. That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me. In the Trinity Term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England.
Later, in "On the Incarnation," Lewis would mention his pipe as a contributing element for ongoing faith: "I believe that many who find that 'nothing happens' when they sit down, or kneel down, to a book of devotion, would find that the heart sings unbidden while they are working their way through a tough bit of theology with a pipe in their teeth and a pencil in their hand."
Lewis would mention his pipe as a contributing element for ongoing faith
His rediscovery of his faith followed a long, late evening walk with friends Hugo Dyson and J.R.R. Tolkien. All three were members of an informal literary group called The Inklings, who met for two decades to promote and discuss literature and especially the writing of fantasy, as well as read their current writings to each other for support and constructive criticism.
Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings and Lewis' Out of the Silent Planet were both read out loud by their authors at the early meetings. The Inklings had no officers or itineraries; they were just authors working the kinks out of their writing and seeing reactions to it. Meetings were held most often on Thursday nights at Lewis' rooms at Magdalen College and on Tuesday afternoons at the Eagle and Child, a local pub built in the 1650s and affectionately called the Bird and Baby by the regulars. Imagine being there and listening to these giants of literature reading their novels as they progressed.
Lewis and Tobacco
Besides literature, there was always smoke, both Lewis and Tolkien being enthusiastic smokers, Tolkien always with a pipe and Lewis alternating between pipes and cigarettes. As for what Lewis smoked, the best research has been done by Fred Brown in an excellent article published on Pipesmagazine.com. Fred reports that:
In one online Lewis source, the Christian Pipe Smokers, a forum thread mentions that the Wade Center at Wheaton College owns two of Lewis's pipes. The center identified the maker of the pipes — the shorter pipe is a Tetley's Lightweight, and the longer pipe is a Cub Foreign.
Fred also found on the no-longer-active forum, "A Community of Wardrobians," the claim that Lewis smoked mainly Charatan and Comoy's pipes, and although no supporting evidence seems to exist, it would certainly make sense given his geographic location. Another thread on Christian Pipe Smokers says that Lewis' favorite tobacco was Gold Block and that he also smoked Three Nuns. Don't miss the opportunity to read Fred's article on Lewis, as well as his many other fine articles; he's a professional (retired) journalist, an excellent researcher, and a gifted writer who knows his pipes.
Lewis smoked mainly Charatan and Comoy's pipes
Few of Lewis' pipes survive, but it's interesting that in addition to the pipes we know about, there also seem to be two wardrobes that are claimed to be the inspiration for the wardrobe in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (1950), as reported by Molly Worthen on the site virtueonline.com:
The Marion E. Wade Center at Wheaton College, an evangelical school near Chicago, houses the largest trove of Lewis' papers outside the Bodleian Library at Oxford .... It also boasts a small museum displaying Lewis' pipe, teapot, desk, ale tankard, and other holy artifacts. In 1973 Wheaton purchased a wardrobe from Lewis' estate that his brother Warren said inspired the magical entryway into Narnia featured in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe — for Lewis fans, the equivalent of the True Cross. Shortly thereafter, Westmont College, an evangelical school in southern California, acquired a different wardrobe from the current owners of the Lewis home and proclaimed theirs the authentic model.
Another online source, dutchpipesmoker, asserts that Lewis smoked both Players Navy Cut and Capstan. Tolkien also smoked Capstan, and it's likely that they shared tobacco over their many years of friendship. It's enormously interesting that these two authors were so closely affiliated in teaching, writing, and smoking. They had somewhat different teaching styles, as related by a student of theirs, John Lawlor, in his book, C.S. Lewis: Memories and Reflections (1998):
I begin with outward appearance, and at once there is striking contrast. Tolkien was unmistakably good-looking— a well-shaped head, delicate hands and feet, and, rarity among donnish heads, well-combed hair. His clothes were neat, his movements calm and controlled. One characteristic of Tolkien made it decidedly hard to follow his utterance—certainly in lectures, and often in conversation. He originally had two prominent front teeth which overlaid the lower lip; and when you add to this a pipe-stem rigidly locked in place you have difficulties that were pretty well insuperable. Lewis and Tolkien were of course inveterate smokers, Lewis at the famed sixty cigarettes a day rate, Tolkien invariably the pipe man. But they exemplified very different styles of lecturing. Lewis at full voice and unashamedly near-dictation speed regularly drew and rewarded full audiences in the Big School on the upper floor. Tolkien, on the ground floor and in much smaller compass, could be consistently heard only by those who squeezed into the front row.
Lawlor also reports that Lewis always smoked: "I never saw him without pipe or cigarettes except when out on a walk...."
C. S. Lewis Statue in Belfast, U.K.
Students Remember his Pipes
In the book, Light on C.S. Lewis (1966), another former student of Lewis, Jocelyn Gibb, relates more of his teaching style:
With the Hilary Term we started on the English School proper, and here Lewis was in his element—the more so as, of the choices offered, I had decided to begin with Spenser. The tutorial ritual was always the same. The pupil, gowned and clutching his essay (an affair of some 3,000 words or more) sat on the comfortable but shapeless settee. Lewis, smoking vigorously (I never saw him without pipe or cigarettes except when eating or out on a walk) sat in the armchair, pencil in hand; and there he doodled, caricatured, and made an occasional note, while the pupil read aloud (twenty minutes might be an average time). Then Lewis would proceed to an examination of what was said; and often, what was not said. I once reminded him of Ronald Knox's remark: 'The prevailing attitude . . . was one of heavy disagreement with a number of things which the reader had not said.' The point was taken; the more the pupil showed a capacity for self-defense the better Lewis was pleased. I like to think that he enjoyed some of our tutorials; for the plain fact is that he hated teaching.
In another book about C.S. Lewis, Carolyn Keefe writes about his keen wit and sense of humor at Oxford:
He was in the habit of knocking out his pipe on the sill of the window overlooking the college gardens. On weekends these gardens are much frequented by out-of-town visitors. One Saturday afternoon after Lewis had just knocked out his pipe over the garden walk, a young man, an utter stranger, dashed into Lewis' room and shouted: "Do you realize that you almost blinded my baby?" "No," said Lewis, "I didn't even know you were married."
Smoking and Lewis seem to have been intertwined in the impressions he left with his students. In yet another book by a Lewis student, C.S. Lewis at the Breakfast Table and Other Reminiscences (1979) by James T. Como, his pipe smoking is again remarked upon prominently:
He smoked cigarettes and a pipe, and I forget if it were he or I or who recalled Stevenson's remarks about the pleasure of smoking a cigarette while you were filling your pipe. Lewis once commented on the fragrance of the first cigarette of the day, and apologized in tutorials for being no longer able to afford handing around cigarettes as he had used to do in the thirties. In tutorials he used to smoke a pipe, and I can still see the rich brown shreds of the weed dangling over the burned, uneven edge of the bowl, pressed down by a stubby finger, constantly relit with matches, and I smell the thick puffs he produced. He had a number of pipes on the big table in his main room, sometimes ready-loaded for a class.
Como continues with another observation regarding Lewis' pipe smoking: "I have since heard that Lewis grew to dislike tutorial work and was often bored, but I don't remember him ever showing any signs of it. He would listen to your essay intently, while smoking his pipe, or rather constantly relighting it. I have never seen a man keep a pipe going for so short a while or use so many matches in relighting it."
He had a number of pipes on the big table in his main room, sometimes ready-loaded for a class.
Pipe smoking was obviously an important part of Lewis' life, though it is rarely mentioned in his works. In his autobiographical Surprised by Joy, he does mention a pipe smoker who was influential in his life:
Smewgy and Kirk were my two greatest teachers. Roughly, one might say (in medieval language) that Smewgy taught me Grammar and Rhetoric and Kirk taught me Dialectic. Each had, and gave me, what the other lacked. Kirk had none of Smewgy's graciousness or delicacy, and Smewgy had less humor than Kirk. It was a saturnine humor. Indeed he was very like Saturn—not the dispossessed King of Italian legend, but grim old Cronos, Father Time himself with scythe and hourglass. The bitterest, and also funniest, things came out when he had risen abruptly from table (always before the rest of us) and stood ferreting in a villainous old tobacco jar on the mantelpiece for the dottles of former pipes which it was his frugal habit to use again. My debt to him is very great, my reverence to this day undiminished.
In Lewis' fiction, one pipe smoker is particularly prominent: Puddleglum from The Silver Chair (1954), the fourth book of The Chronicles of Narnia:
Presently the Marsh-wiggle joined them. In spite of his expectation of catching no eels, he had a dozen or so, which he had already skinned and cleaned. He put a big pot on, mended the fire, and lit his pipe. Marsh-wiggles smoke a very strange, heavy sort of tobacco (some people say they mix it with mud) and the children noticed the smoke from Puddleglum's pipe hardly rose in the air at all. It trickled out of the bowl and downwards and drifted along the ground like a mist. It was very black and set Scrubb coughing.
Mid-Life and Later
Lewis was 40 at the beginning of WWII and tried to reenter the military, but was rejected, though he was offered the opportunity to write for the Ministry of Information. He had no interest in writing propaganda, however, and declined. In the early '40s he spoke regularly on the BBC during the time that London was enduring multiple air raids. His subject matter was faith-based and he anthologized his broadcasts to create Mere Christianity.
In 1954, he accepted the chair of Mediaeval and Renaissance Literature in Cambridge at Magdalene College, though he maintained a home in Oxford for the rest of his life. He would work at Magdalene for the remainder of his career.
He was not an undiscovered talent. In 1947, he was on the cover of Time magazine, and his works built in popularity, though not to the lofty summits they would later achieve. Many have grown up with The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe at the very least, and his science fiction/fantasy has been enormously popular as well. The Space Trilogy, which comprises Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, and That Hideous Strength, has been enormously influential. His was a mind that could synthesize the mythic and creatively present it in modern form, and every new generation brings new enthusiasts to his work.
Diagnosed with nephritis, an inflammation of the kidneys, in 1961, his health began to decline, and the inflammation became blood poisoning. He began improving though, and in 1962 was healthy enough to resume his responsibilities at Cambridge. In July of 1963, however, he again suffered health problems and had a heart attack that put him into a coma, but he surprisingly revived the next day. He had been seeing doctors regularly during his illness and followed most of their advice, but fell short when it came to tobacco, as John Davenport relates in his book, C.S. Lewis (1964):
His doctor prescribed a strict diet and ample rest. He also recommended that Lewis give up the cigarettes, but after about fifty years of smoking it proved difficult — so he decided not to follow his doctor's orders, at least as far as tobacco went. Lewis argued that if he gave up smoking he "should be unbearably bad-tempered. What an infliction on my friends." Lewis stated defiantly, "Better to die cheerfully with the aid of a little tobacco, than to live disagreeably and remorseful without." What time he had to live would be enjoyed.
C.S. Lewis passed away from kidney failure on November 22, 1963, his death sadly not given its due respect because it was the same day as the media-dominating assassination of John F. Kennedy. In 2008, he was ranked by The Times of London as number 11 of the 50 greatest British authors since 1945. However, the joy he has brought readers cannot be quantified. He has entertained generations, his stories continue to inspire, and his legacy stimulates the imaginations of the grateful admirers whose lives have benefited from his bountiful and compassionate originality.
References:
- Virtue Online
- Medium.com
- Pipes Magazine
- C. S. Lewis Institute
- CS Lewis at the BBC (2002), by Justin Phillips
- The Silver Chair (1953) (Book 4 of the Chronicles of Narnia), by C.S. Lewis
- Light on C.S. Lewis (1966), by Jocelyn Gibb
- C.S. Lewis: Speaker and Teacher (1971), by Carolyn Keefe
- C.S. Lewis (2004), by John Davenport
- C.S. Lewis: A Life (2004), by Micheal White
- C.S. Lewis: Memories and Reflections (1998), by John Lawlor
- "C.S. Lewis and the Great War," (2018), by Joseph Laconte
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Comments
I am eternally indebted to this man, his writings and his legacy. I am fortunate to have one of the pipes he had, a small round "cub foreign". It sits, out of my rotation, on the bookshelf alongside many of his books. It is because of him and Tolkien that I got into pipe smoking, and have smoked my pipes (especially Capstan and Three Nuns, naturally) all over the world both in warzones and at peace. Every time I open one of his works, its like popping in on the old oxford don, as he was responding to letters (by hand with a dip pen) or grading term papers. If you've never read "The Screwtape Letters", pick up a copy of the audio drama put together by Focus on the Family and Andy Serkis (Gollum). You wont regret it.
Chuck, the best article so far! I’ve been to the Bird and the Baby 3 times. In there you feel the two of them and remember the aroma of the tobacco smoke.
Bravo, Chuck! Lewis was my first great spiritual mentor. I read my first academic paper in graduate school on his pipe-smoking Marshwiggle, Puddleglum. Just like your twin essays on Mark Twain for P&T many years back, this is a superbly crafted, richly documented biography of a great pipeman. Thank you so much.
What a well written and interesting tribute to a great mind! Thank you, as Lewis was not only a great and influential writer, but one who brought depth to the subjects he tackled. How far is that from the wading around we tend to get these days?
Wow. Thank you so much for sharing the article about Lewis. What a great teacher and influencer. Its always a pleasure to hear about great contemplaters such as Lewis and Tolkien reflecting on the world and appreciating nature's beauty.
Thank you for this well rounded and considerate portrait of the man. It was the perfect length for my dwindling attention span. I wonder if smokers of Lewis’s generation didn’t mention it as much because of how relatively common it was to do so in their time. Pity for us, but I appreciate what information there is all the same. Thanks again - you’ve become one of my favorite writers.
Just an excellent article on a fascinating person! thank you so much.
A Fathers Day delight to read about this literary and spiritual giant of our time.... and his love of the pipe and its contemplative/tranquil advantages. Thank you for this well written and informative article.
Excellent article! What an amazing man, authors of today just cannot seem to capture Lewis’s aura of the artist
Wonderful article. Much appreciated.
Thanks so much--really excellent. Lewis has been a huge influence on me in my life.
Lewis and Tolkien, the early "enablers" of our hobby;) Thank you for the great daily reader on "C.S. Lewis." I'll now have to purchase "Mere Christianity" to read...
Wonderful article!
Thank you for another very interesting article.
Fantastic article, Chuck! Lewis has had a profound impact on me. All of his writing has, but especially Surprised By Joy, which changed my life. Lewis's struggle with God resonated with my own, and encouraged me to explore further and eventually accept that God did in fact exist, and Christian theology as Lewis distilled it made a great deal of sense to me. I have read most of your sources for this article--you have captured him beautifully, and shared him through our shared passion for pipes and tobacco in a most compelling way. Well done!
I am working through "Jack a life of C.S.Lewis" by George Sayer" and your article is spot on. Except for the omission of Joy Davidman. She brought a new perspective to his life, their short marriage and her death from cancer, were pivotal to his writing. A great man, writer and human being and a pipe smoker. RIP Jack.
While I never read any of Lewis's books, save for "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe," (which was excellent) I do recall a particular quote of his, in regards to childishness and maturity, quite frequently. I believe I owe him some small gratitude for those words, which sparked a realization that helped me become a more complete and more mature man while I was growing up. It's been interesting to read a little more on his life, and I give Chuck my highest complements for citing sources and doing his research.
Wonderful article. Thank you!
Eleven at night and capping off a great Father’s Day with my family with your excellent article! These are two great authors who made great contributions to society in general and to Christianity in particular. My imagination runs wild with images of them smoking, writing, and sharing. I would love to visit the pub one day. Thanks!
I too am in awe of your solid treatment of Lewis. Exceptional!
Beautiful Awesome Pipes Bible Wonderful A!!!
I loved this article but had to wait till today so that I could read it without interruption. I thoroughly enjoyed Mere Christianity. Lewis was truly an inspiration and a spiritual mentor to so many. Thanks for this article. I would love to see a follow-up article on J.R Tolkien.
Excellent article Chuck.
I really enjoyed this article and learned more about the man than I knew before, thank you. I would also love to see a follow up article on J.R.R. Tolkien, it is the 20th anniversary year of Peter Jackson's Lord Of The Rings Trilogy. I was laughing, thinking about those students in Tolkien's class that weren't in the front row. I imagined them all whispering amongst each other "What did he say?" "Did you catch that?" "Did you hear that?", and asking the people in the front row for their notes after class.
*20th anniversary of the LOTR: The Fellowship Of The Ring movie. Seems like yesterday.
This is a very good article.
I love Chuck Stanion's writing, and Lewis is a really big family favorite, so this was a treat. Thanks Chuck!
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Chuck, how were you able to use Artur picture of Lewis? I would love to use it on a gift but Zippo won't print it of course.
Rino: We commission these portraits directly from Artur and have a contract permitting reproduction for use on the _Daily Reader_. You may be able to arrange rights through him as well: https://www.behance.net/user/?username=arturillustrator