Lewis's space trilogy came out of this same impulse to write the sort of stories that he and Tolkien liked to read. It dawned on both men that there was a need to create a readership again for these books-especially an adult readership. These stories told them important things about life-about who they were and what the world was like, and about the realm of the divine. Even strong warriors enjoyed them, rejoicing in their triumphant moments, weeping at tragic turns of events. And they realized that it was only quite recently that such stories had become marginalized as 'children's stories.' Through much of history these were tales told and enjoyed by grown-ups.

Professionally, they studied and taught the literatures of medieval romance and, in Tolkien's case, the background of Norse myth. Lewis had also heard Celtic myths-his nurse had told him some of the folk tales of Ireland. Personally, they had both read and enjoyed such stories as they were growing up, in collections by the brothers Grimm, Andrew Lang, and others. They had both personal and professional reasons for this interest. What was it about 'fairy stories' that led these two men to want to rehabilitate them for a modern audience-adults as well as children? You have said that if it hadn't been for the friendship between Tolkien and Lewis, the world would likely never have seen The Narnia Chronicles, The Lord of the Rings, and much else. Tolkien and Lewis shared the belief that through myth and legend-for centuries the mode many cultures had used to communicate their deepest truths-a taste of the Christian gospel's 'True Myth' could be smuggled past the barriers and biases of secularized readers.Ĭhristian History managing editor Chris Armstrong reached Colin this week at his home in Leicester, England. Duriez tells the story of how these two brilliant authors met, discovered their common love for mythical tales, and pledged to bring such stories into the mainstream of public reading taste. Yet if two young professors had not met at an otherwise ordinary Oxford faculty meeting in 1926, those wondrous lands would still be unknown to us.īritish author Colin Duriez, who wrote the article 'Tollers and Jack' in issue #78 of Christian History, explains why this is so in his forthcoming book Tolkien and C. Our world would be poorer without two other worlds: Narnia and Middle-earth.

Perelandra by cs lewis