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C. S. Lewis
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===Joy Davidman=== {{Quote box |width = 20% |align = right |qalign = right |quote = She was my daughter and my mother, my pupil and my teacher, my subject and my sovereign; and always, holding all these in solution, my trusty comrade, friend, shipmate, fellow-soldier. My mistress; but at the same time all that any man friend (and I have good ones) has ever been to me. Perhaps more. |source = C. S. Lewis<ref name="washtimes">{{Cite news |url=http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/aug/16/books-out-my-bone-letters-joy-davidman/ |title=BOOKS: 'Out of My Bone: The Letters of Joy Davidman' |last=Person |first=James E. Jr. |date=16 August 2009 |work=[[The Washington Times]] |access-date=8 December 2011 |archive-date=11 January 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120111101154/http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/aug/16/books-out-my-bone-letters-joy-davidman/ |url-status=live }}</ref> }} In later life, Lewis corresponded with [[Joy Gresham|Joy Davidman Gresham]], an American writer of [[American Jews|Jewish background]], a former [[Communist Party USA|Communist]], and a convert from atheism to Christianity. She was separated from her alcoholic and abusive husband, novelist [[William Lindsay Gresham|William L. Gresham]], and came to England with her two sons, David and [[Douglas Gresham|Douglas]].{{sfn|Haven|2006}} Lewis at first regarded her as an agreeable intellectual companion and personal friend, and it was on this level that he agreed to enter into a [[civil marriage]] contract with her so that she could continue to live in the UK.{{sfn|Hooper|Green|2002|p=268}} They were married at the [[register office]], 42 [[St Giles', Oxford]], on 23 April 1956.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LWK59Z68ZGoC&pg=PA79 |title=C. S. Lewis: A Complete Guide to His Life and Works |last=Hooper |first=Walter |date=23 June 1998 |isbn=9780060638801 |page=79 |publisher=Zondervan |access-date=3 December 2011 |archive-date=31 December 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131231124331/http://books.google.com/books?id=LWK59Z68ZGoC&pg=PA79 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.oxfordhistory.org.uk/stgiles/tour/west/42.html |title=No. 42 |date=7 December 2011 |website=St Giles', Oxford |access-date=9 October 2013 |archive-date=16 October 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131016124557/http://www.oxfordhistory.org.uk/stgiles/tour/west/42.html |url-status=live }}</ref> Lewis's brother Warren wrote: "For Jack the attraction was at first undoubtedly intellectual. Joy was the only woman whom he had met ... who had a brain which matched his own in suppleness, in width of interest, and in analytical grasp, and above all in humour and a sense of fun."{{sfn|Haven|2006}} After complaining of a painful hip, she was diagnosed with terminal [[bone cancer]], and the relationship developed to the point that they sought a Christian marriage. Since she was divorced, this was not straightforward in the [[Marriage in England and Wales|Church of England]] at the time, but a friend, the Rev. Peter Bide, performed the ceremony at her bed in the [[Churchill Hospital]] on 21 March 1957.<ref>Schultz and West (eds), ''The C. S. Lewis Reader's Encyclopedia'' (Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1988), p. 249.</ref> Gresham's cancer soon went into [[Remission (medicine)|remission]], and the couple lived together as a family with [[Warren Lewis]] until 1960, when her cancer recurred. She died on 13 July 1960. Earlier that year, the couple took a brief holiday in Greece and the [[Aegean Sea|Aegean]]; Lewis was fond of walking but not of travel, and this marked his only crossing of the [[English Channel]] after 1918. Lewis's book ''[[A Grief Observed]]'' describes his experience of bereavement in such a raw and personal fashion that he originally released it under the pseudonym N. W. Clerk to keep readers from associating the book with him. Ironically, many friends recommended the book to Lewis as a method for dealing with his own grief. After Lewis's death, his authorship was made public by [[Faber and Faber|Faber]], with the permission of the [[Literary estate|executors]].{{sfn|Lewis|1961|loc=jacket notes}} Lewis had adopted Gresham's two sons and continued to raise them after her death. [[Douglas Gresham]] is a Christian like Lewis and his mother,<ref>{{Cite news |url=http://www.theage.com.au/news/books/at-home-in-narnia/2005/12/03/1133422143366.html?page=fullpage |title=At home in Narnia |date=3 December 2005 |work=The Age |location=Melbourne, Australia |page=2 |access-date=4 May 2009 |archive-date=3 August 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090803000509/http://www.theage.com.au/news/books/at-home-in-narnia/2005/12/03/1133422143366.html?page=fullpage |url-status=live }}</ref> while David Gresham turned to his mother's ancestral faith, becoming [[Orthodox Judaism|Orthodox Jewish]] in his beliefs. His mother's writings had featured the Jews in an unsympathetic manner, particularly on ''[[shechita]]'' (ritual slaughter). David informed Lewis that he was going to become a ''[[shohet]]'', a ritual slaughterer, to present this type of Jewish religious [[Official|functionary]] to the world in a more favourable light. In a 2005 interview, Douglas Gresham acknowledged that he and his brother were not close, although they had corresponded via email.<ref name="theage.com.au">{{Cite news |url=http://www.theage.com.au/news/books/at-home-in-narnia/2005/12/03/1133422143366.html?page=4 |title=At home in Narnia |date=3 December 2005 |work=The Age |location=Melbourne, Australia |page=4 |access-date=4 May 2009 |archive-date=29 August 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160829072433/http://www.theage.com.au/news/books/at-home-in-narnia/2005/12/03/1133422143366.html?page=4 |url-status=live }}</ref> David died on 25 December 2014.<ref>{{cite journal | url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/48600470 | jstor=48600470 | title=David Gresham (1944β2014) | last1=Santamaria | first1=Abigail | journal=VII: Journal of the Marion E. Wade Center | date=2015 | volume=32 | pages=11β13 }}</ref> In 2020, Douglas revealed that his brother had died at a Swiss [[mental hospital]], and that when David was a young man he had been diagnosed with [[paranoid schizophrenia]].<ref>{{cite web | url = https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2020/09/c-s-lewis-and-his-stepsons | work=First Things | title = C.S. Lewis and His Stepsons | date=3 September 2020}}</ref>
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