Editing That Hideous Strength (section)

==Setting and context==
The novel is set in post-war England, in the fictional English town of Edgestow, in approximately 1948 according to the internal timeline of 'The Cosmic Trilogy'.<ref>{{cite book |last=Simpson |first=Paul |date=2013 |title=C.S. Lewis From Mere Christianity to Narnia |location=London |publisher=Constable & Robinson |page=91 |isbn=978-1-4721-0066-5 }}</ref> The story takes place inside the University of Edgestow, within the nearby town, at the new N.I.C.E. headquarters, and at St Anne's Manor.

Elwin Ransom, introduced in the novel in Chapter 7, is the protagonist of the first two books in Lewis's space trilogy, and his point of view dominates their narrative. Lord Feverstone (formerly Dick Devine) was a villain in the first novel who, along with Professor Weston, had abducted Ransom to Mars in the mistaken belief that the Martians required a sacrifice. When Feverstone speaks in ''That Hideous Strength'' of Weston having been murdered by "the opposition", he is speaking of Ransom having killed Weston (who had become possessed by a devil) on Venus as described in ''Perelandra''. The first two books fully explicate Lewis's mythology (based on a combination of the Bible and medieval cosmology)<ref>The origins of Lewis's mythology are most thoroughly explored in the book ''Planet Narnia'' by [[Michael Ward (scholar)|Michael Ward]], although this work is mainly concerned with the Narnia series. Many readers of Lewis's nonfiction study of the medieval world-view, ''[[The Discarded Image]]'', have inferred that this is the source of much of the mythos of the space trilogy.{{cn|date=February 2022}}</ref> according to which each planet of the solar system is ruled by an angelic spirit. This mythos is re-introduced gradually in this story, whose protagonists—the earthbound Mark and Jane Studdock—are unaware of these realities when the story opens.