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Publié par	The Kent State University Press
Date de parution	13 décembre 2022
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781631014987
Langue	English

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Inkling, Historian, Soldier, and Brother
Photo of Warren Lewis sitting in a chair with pipe at the Kilns, circa 1970. (Used by permission of Douglas R. Gilbert)
Inkling, Historian, Soldier, and Brother
A Life of Warren Hamilton Lewis
DON W. KING
The Kent State University Press Kent, Ohio
To Isaac, Avila, Ezra, and Elliott
© 2023 by The Kent State University Press, Kent, Ohio 44242
All rights reserved
ISBN 978-1-60635-450-6
Manufactured in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced, in any manner whatsoever, without written permission from the Publisher, except in the case of short quotations in critical reviews or articles.
Cataloging information for this title is available at the Library of Congress.
27 26 25 24 23 5 4 3 2 1
Those who do not look upon themselves as a link, connecting the past with the future, do not perform their duty to the world. —Daniel Webster
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
List of Abbreviations
Chronology
1 Early Life (1895–1914)
2 The Great War (1914–1918)
3 Army Career (1919–1932)
4 Beginning the Business of Living (1933–1939)
5 Turning and Drifting (1939–1951)
6 Historian and Literary Success (1952–1960)
7 Men Must Endure (1960–1973)
Epilogue
Appendix
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Acknowledgments
I have many persons to thank for assistance in writing this book. Nathan King, the Library Director at Montreat College, and his staff, especially Phoebe Maa, have been endlessly patient and helpful in securing materials. I am grateful as well to the staff at the Marion E. Wade Center, particularly David Downing and Marjorie Mead, who not only encouraged my research and made me comfortable during my many visits to the Wade Center, but also labored diligently to help me determine which excerpts from Warren’s writings that I could cite in the biography. I also owe debts of gratitude to Paul Maurer, President of Montreat College, and the Faculty Scholarship Committee for their encouragement and a summer research grant, as well as the Appalachian College Association for awarding me two summer research grants. Thanks are due as well to my student research assistants Emily Erlien, Lexi Hudson, Fiona Brown, Lily Queen, and Zoe Evans. I am also deeply grateful to Joanna King-Yost, Corrie Greene, and George Musacchio, who read and commented upon early drafts of the manuscript. Joel Heck comes in for special thanks as he shared a good deal of his expertise and knowledge regarding Warren Lewis’s life and writings with me at critical points along the way. I am most appreciative of the excellent editorial advice of the Kent State University Press, especially my editors Susan Wadsworth-Booth and Mary Young. Finally, I owe my wife, Jeanine, a great debt since I spent so many hours away from her while working on this book.
All copyrighted material of Warren Lewis is used by permission of the Marion E. Wade Center, Wheaton College, Wheaton, Illinois. Excerpts from Surprised by Joy, Collected Letters of C. S. Lewis, Volume I: Family Letters 1905–1931 (London: HarperCollins, 2000), C. S. Lewis, Collected Letters, Volume II: Books, Broadcasts, and War, 1931–1949 (London: HarperCollins, 2004), and C. S. Lewis, Collected Letters, Volume III: Narnia, Cambridge, and Joy, 1950–1963 , edited by Walter Hooper (London: HarperCollins, 2006), are used by permission of the C. S. Lewis Company.
Appearing in this book is adapted material originally published in the following articles:
“Warren Lewis, Mrs Janie King Moore, and The Kilns,” Journal of Inklings Studies 7:1 (Apr. 2017): 103–18.
“The Early Life of Warren Hamilton Lewis (1895–1913),” Journal of Inklings Studies 8:1 (Apr. 2018): 1–30.
“Warnie at War (1914–1918),” VII, Journal of the Marion E. Wade Center 35 (2018): 87–110.
“When Did the Inklings Meet? A Chronological Survey of Their Gatherings: 1933–1953,” Journal of Inklings Studies 10, no. 2 (Oct. 2020): 184–204.
“Warren Lewis and the Lewis Papers,” VII, Journal of the Marion E. Wade Center 37 (2020): 111–22.
“Warren Lewis: The Soldier Sailor,” Journal of Inklings Studies 11, no. 1 (Apr. 2021): 58–69.
Introduction
Although Warren Hamilton Lewis (1895–1973) is best known as the beloved brother of C. S. Lewis (1898–1963), a biography of his life is necessary (not only for the importance of that role but also) because of his intimate involvement in the military, social, and cultural history of twentieth century England. Lewis fought in World War I as a young, untried officer in the Army Service Corp. His experience in history’s greatest bloodbath mirrored that of thousands of others. In addition, his nightmarish days in northern France call to mind the war poetry of Edmund Blunden, Ivor Gurney, David Jones, Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon, and Edward Thomas as well as the prose of Sassoon and Robert Graves and their German counterparts Ernest Jünger and Erich Maria Remarque. Moreover, as a career army officer later serving in Sierra Leone and Shanghai, Lewis’s Eurocentric sensibilities made him incapable of seeing the ways in which British colonialism shaped and hampered his understanding of the native African and Chinese people among whom he lived. Retiring from the army at the relatively young age of thirty-seven, Lewis spent the remainder of his life resolved to beginning what he called “the business of living,” by which he meant finding satisfaction and meaning in a life outside the world of billets and barracks.
In addition to what has been noted, five particular matters underscore the importance of this biography. First, Warren Lewis’s life sheds new light on his famous brother, including the warm and loving relationship between the two brothers that lasted throughout their lives. As young boys, they bonded quickly, in part as a response to the loss at early ages of their mother, Flora Lewis (1862–1908), and their corresponding complicity against what they believed to be the emotional, intellectual, and social intrusions upon their lives by their father, Albert Lewis (1863–1929). C. S. Lewis’s autobiography, Surprised by Joy (1955), as well as Collected Letters of C. S. Lewis, Volume 1: Family Letters 1905–1931 (2000), provide ample evidence of this complicity; however, scholars have yet to explore in depth Warren’s responses to his mother’s death and his father’s role in his early life. In addition, Warren’s struggle with alcoholism is well known, but its origin, influence on his life, and impact on his brother’s life has not been explored in any detail. Moreover, after the death of C. S. Lewis, Warren lived another ten years—years that became increasingly dark as he grieved the passing of his beloved brother
Second, this biography explores Warren as an accomplished “amateur” historian—that is, he was not a university-trained and university-educated scholar. Nevertheless, he researched and wrote seven books on seventeenth-century French history:
The Splendid Century: Some Aspects of French Life in the Reign of Louis XIV. London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1953.
The Sunset of the Splendid Century: The Life and Times of Louis Auguste de Bourbon, Duc de Maine, 1670–1736. London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1955.
Assault on Olympus: The Rise of the House of Gramont between 1604 and 1678. London: Andre Deutsch, 1958.
Louis XIV: An Informal Portrait. London: Andre Deutsch, 1959.
The Scandalous Regent: A Life of Philippe, Duc d’Orleans, 1674–1723, and of His Family. London: Andre Deutsch, 1961.
Levantine Adventurer: The Travels and Missions of the Chevalier d’Arvieux, 1653–1697. London: Andre Deutsch, 1962.
Memoirs of the Duc de Saint-Simon. London: B. T. Batsford, 1964.
In addition, Warren collected, edited, and wrote the eleven-volume typescript manuscript, Memoirs of the Lewis Family: 1850–1930 , and after the death of his brother in 1963, Warren published the Letters of C. S. Lewis (London: Geoffrey Bles, 1966). These volumes continue to be consulted today by researchers wanting to learn more about the life of C. S. Lewis. Yet no work has been done on the nature of these writings, Warren’s strengths and weaknesses as a researcher and writer, and how these works contribute to our understanding of him and his famous brother.
Third, this account of Warren’s life examines his role as an original member (along with his brother and J. R. R. Tolkien) of the Oxford Inklings—that now famous group of novelists, thinkers, churchmen, poets, essayists, medical men, scholars, and friends who met regularly to drink beer and to hear written compositions read aloud and to discuss books, ideas, history, and writers. In his diaries, Warren often wrote summaries of what occurred at the various gatherings of the Inklings; in addition, he often shared insights about and commentary regarding the characters of the other Inklings. For instance, he was great friends with one Inkling in particular—Charles Williams—and after the unexpected death of Williams, Warren experienced a shattering sense of loss.
Fourth, this biography delves into Warren’s participation as an active member of the household at the Kilns, the residence in Headington that he co-owned with his brother and Mrs. Janie Moore. In fact, after his retirement from the army in the early 1930s, two rooms were added to the Kilns that served as his study and bedroom for the rest of his life. In the only significant publication about Warren’s life, Brothers and Friends: The Diaries of Major Warren Hamilton Lewis. Eds. Clyde S. Kilby and Marjorie Lamp Mead (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1982), we learn something of the everyday life of the household, especially of Warren’s increasing dislike of Mrs. Moore and how living there became something of drudgery and burden for him. However, Brothers and Friends is not the complete diary; in fact, it contains only about ten percent of Warren’s complete 1.2-million-word daily record. This biography draws extensively from both Brot