C. S. Lewis and the Myth That Became Fact

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At the age of 20, C. S. Lewis released his first publication, a collection of poetry titled, Spirits in Bondage. He had recently returned from the front lines of World War I, and although he had been raised in the Christian church, he was at this point an avowed atheist with a despondent view of the world. With bleak honesty, he wrote:

Come let us curse our Master ere we die,
For all our hopes in endless ruin lie.
The good is dead. Let us curse God most High.[1]

C. S. Lewis, Spirits in Bondage

C. S. Lewis, Spirits in Bondage, PBK.002323. Fewer than 10 copies are known to survive.

In the ensuing years, Lewis underwent a remarkable transformation. He came to believe that “the good” was, on the contrary, very much alive. He eventually embraced Christianity, and today, he is widely regarded as one of the most influential Christian apologists of the twentieth century.

Lewis’s path from despondency to hope ran through academia. After the war, he studied classics and English literature at the University of Oxford. His literary interests ranged from ancient mythology to Renaissance poetry. He taught English literature—first at Oxford and later at Cambridge—for the remainder of his life.

C. S. Lewis’s second published text, Dymer

C. S. Lewis, Dymer, PBK.002318. Lewis’s second published text, Dymer, is a narrative poem that reflects his literary interests but not his later Christian beliefs.

As a young scholar, Lewis befriended a number of Christian colleagues at Oxford, including author J. R. R. Tolkien. During a famous conversation with Tolkien and Hugo Dyson, Lewis insisted that the story of Christ’s life, death, and resurrection was a myth, no different than the pagan myths that he knew and loved. Tolkien challenged this idea, and over time, Lewis came to view these myths as dim reflections of the truth. And that truth, Lewis decided, became incarnate in the person of Christ. When Christ took on flesh, Lewis wrote, “myth became fact.”[2] Recounting his conversion in his later autobiography, Surprised by Joy, Lewis expanded upon this idea.

"I was by now too experienced in literary criticism to regard the Gospels as myths. They had not the mythical taste. And yet the very matter which they set down in their artless, historical fashion . . . was precisely the matter of the great myths. If ever a myth had become fact, had been incarnated, it would be just like this. And nothing else in all literature was just like this . . . . Here and only here in all time the myth must have become fact; the Word, flesh; God, Man. This is not ‘a religion’, nor ‘a philosophy’. It is the summing up and actuality of them all."[3]

After his conversion to Christianity, Lewis authored several texts that explored his newfound Christian faith. Nevertheless, he remained a relatively unknown academic until 1941, when he was invited to deliver a series of radio broadcasts on Christianity. These broadcasts—which proclaimed the hope of the Christian faith to millions of listeners during the darkest moments of World War II—launched Lewis’s career as a Christian apologist. His broadcasts were later revised and published as Mere Christianity.
As Lewis blossomed into one of the most recognizable public representatives of the Christian faith, he did not leave his scholarly or literary interests behind. He continued teaching English literature, and in 1950, he released a short novel about a group of children who discovered a magical land beyond a wardrobe. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was quickly followed by six additional books, and The Chronicles of Narnia went on to became one of the best-selling fantasy series in history.

As Lewis rose to international fame, his brother, Warren, served as his unofficial secretary. Lewis exchanged letters with thousands of correspondents, from adults with questions about faith, philosophy, and literature, to young children writing about the fantasy land of Narnia. By Warren’s estimate, he transcribed more than twelve thousand letters between C. S. Lewis and correspondents around the world.

Warren Lewis’s typewriter

This was Warren Lewis’s typewriter for more than 35 years. It is owned by the C. S. Lewis Foundation and typically on display at The Kilns, C. S. Lewis’s former home in Oxford, England. From March 2025 to February 2026, it will be on display at Museum of the Bible.

Handwritten letter from C. S. Lewis to a correspondent named Mr. Rooke

C. S. Lewis, PPR.010226. In this handwritten letter to a correspondent named Mr. Rooke, Lewis discussed the value of poetry and described the vision possessed by good poets as “knowledge in the deepest sense.”

Lewis continued teaching literature, writing fiction, and defending Christianity for the remainder of his life. After his death, his friend and literary executor Walter Hooper, revealed that Lewis had quietly given the majority of his income to charity for much of his life.

To learn more about C. S. Lewis on literature, mythology, and faith, visit C. S. Lewis and the Myth That Became Fact at Museum of the Bible, March 7, 2025–February 14, 2026.

By Wesley Viner Associate Curator of Early Modern Bibles and Religious Culture