Simon Horobin on C.S. Lewis at Oxford Literary Festival.

Few people could be better positioned to write about C.S. Lewis and Oxford than Simon Horobin, who is a professor of Mediaeval English language and literature at Magdalen College, Oxford, almost exactly the job that Lewis had a century ago - although Lewis, as Horobin points out, was only a Fellow, and was never made a professor at Oxford. Despite his immense erudition and awesome scholarship, Lewis had to go to Cambridge to get that honour.

   Nevertheless, Lewis always kept his home in Oxford and the thirty-four years he spent here as student and teacher made him what he was. Horobin has now written C.S. Lewis's Oxford, based on hitherto undiscovered documents, and anecdotes, illustrated with superb photographs. It would make a wonderful gift for anyone who likes Lewis, or indeed anyone who likes Oxford.

   Horobin's research reveals much about Lewis as a tutor. He had high standards and could be brutal to students he thought were slackers. "How I wish I could get rid of that idle prig," he wrote of John Betjeman. When the idler failed an exam, Lewis refused to allow him back for a resit, so he left without a degree, (which did not prevent him from becoming Poet Laureate). 

   A formidable classicist and linguist himself, Lewis expected students of English to be able to read Latin and Greek classics in the original text, know the whole Bible, and be prepared to study Anglo-Saxon and Middle English, before relaxing with Tudor poetry as light reading.

   Oxford clubs played an important part in Lewis's life and development. He was the first president of the Socratic Club, where students met to discuss religion and religious doubts in an open-minded way. He also spent many intense evenings at the Coalbiters, a club for those studying Old Icelandic, where he met his lifelong friend J.R.R.Tolkien. Both loved creating imaginary worlds, and Lewis was one of the first friends to whom Tolkien showed the poems he was writing in his invented language, Elvish. 

   Later they and a third friend, Charles Williams, set up The Inklings, an informal club where they discussed their literary works in progress over pints at the Eagle and Child pub.

    Apparently during World War II, when many children were evacuated from London for safety, Lewis and his brother Warnie hosted four little girls at their Oxford home, The Kilns, to be cared for by Mrs Moore. This undoubtedly gave him the idea for the opening of the first Narnia story. One of them later remembered that Lewis sometimes took them out for fish and chips. 

  Horobin has revealed many new details about Lewis and also gives glimpses of the curious customs and oddities of Oxford in his time.  

To buy the the book go Blackwell's bookshop, or order it online:-

https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/9781851245642?src=1389975603&isbn=9781851245642

https://oxfordliteraryfestival.org/literature-events/2025/april-02/c-s-lewiss-oxford