C.S. Lewis' Signature Classics
| Mere Christianity |
 1943
England, when all hope was threatened by the inhumanity of
war, C.S. Lewis was invited to give a series of radio lectures
addressing the central issues of Christianity. More than half
a century after the original lectures, they continue to retain
their poignancy. First heard as informal radio broadcasts,
the lectures were then published as three books and subsequently
combined as Mere Christianity. C.S. Lewis proves that "at
the center of each there is something, or a Someone, who against
all divergences of belief, all differences of temperament,
all memories of mutual persecution, speaks with the same voice,"
rejecting the boundaries that divide Christianity's many denominations.
This twentieth-century masterpiece provides an unequaled opportunity
for believers and nonbelievers alike to hear a powerful, rational
case for the Christian faith.
"I read Lewis for comfort and pleasure many years ago, and a
glance into the books revives my old admiration."
-- John Updike
"C.S. Lewis is the ideal persuader for the half-convinced, for the
good man who would like to be a Christian but finds his intellect
getting in the way."
-- Anthony Burgess, New York Times Book Review |
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| The Screwtape Letters |
 A
masterpiece of satire, this classic has entertained and enlightened
readers the world over with its sly and ironic portrayal of
human life from the vantage point of Screwtape, a highly placed
assistant to "Our Father Below." At once wildly comic,
deadly serious, and strikingly original, C.S. Lewis gives us
the correspondence of the worldly-wise old devil to his nephew
Wormwood, a novice demon in charge of securing the damnation
of an ordinary young man. The Screwtape Letters is the most
engaging and humorous account of temptation -- and triumph over
it -- ever written. |
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| The Great Divorce |
 In
The Great Divorce C. S. Lewis again employs his formidable talent
for fable and allegory. The writer, in a dream, boards a bus
on a drizzly afternoon and embarks on an incredible voyage through
Heaven and Hell. He meets a host of supernatural beings far
removed from his expectations and comes to significant realizations
about the ultimate consequences of everyday behavior. This is
the starting point for a profound meditation upon good and evil.
"If we insist on keeping Hell (or even earth) we shall
not see Heaven: if we accept Heaven we shall not be able to
retain even the smallest and most intimate souvenirs of Hell." |
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| The Problem of Pain |
 Why must we suffer?
"If God is good and all-powerful, why
does he allow his creatures to suffer pain?" And what
of the suffering of animals, who neither deserve pain nor
can be improved by it? The greatest Christian thinker of our
time sets out to disentangle this knotty issue. With his signature
wealth of compassion and insight, C.S. Lewis offers answers
to these crucial questions and shares his hope and wisdom
to help heal a world hungering for a true understanding of
human nature. |
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| Miracles |
 Do
miracles really happen?
"The central miracle asserted by Christians is the Incarnation.
They say that God became Man. Every other miracle prepares
the way for this, or results from this." This is the
key statement of Miracles, in which C. S. Lewis shows that
a Christian must not only accept but rejoice in miracles as
a testimony of the unique personal involvement of God in creation.
Using his characteristic warmth, lucidity, and wit, Lewis
challenges the rationalists and cynics who are mired in their
lack of imagination and provides a poetic and joyous affirmation
that miracles really do occur in our everyday lives.
"If I were ever to stray into the Christian camp, it would be
because of Lewis's arguments as expressed in books like Miracles."
-- Kenneth Tynan |
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| A Grief Observed |
 Written
after his wife's tragic death as a way of surviving the "mad
midnight moment," A Grief Observed is C. S. Lewis's honest
reflection on the fundamental issues of life, death, and faith
in the midst of loss. This work contains his concise, genuine
reflections on that period: "Nothing will shake a man --
or at any rate a man like me -- out of his merely verbal thinking
and his merely notional beliefs. He has to be knocked silly
before he comes to his senses. Only torture will bring out the
truth. Only under torture does he discover it himself."
This is a beautiful and unflinchingly homest record of how even
a stalwart believer can lose all sense of meaning in the universe,
and how he can gradually regain his bearings. |
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