C. S. Lewis
Lewis and fellow novelist J. R. R. Tolkien were close friends. They both served on the English faculty at Oxford University, and were active in the informal Oxford literary group known as the Inklings. According to Lewis's memoir "Surprised by Joy", he was baptised in the Church of Ireland, but fell away from his faith during adolescence. Lewis returned to Anglicanism at the age of 32, owing to the influence of Tolkien and other friends, and he became an "ordinary layman of the Church of England". Lewis's faith profoundly affected his work, and his wartime radio broadcasts on the subject of Christianity brought him wide acclaim.
Steven A. Beebe
C. S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien were planning on writing a book on language together in the 1940s, but the book was never published. Beebe discovered the opening pages of the manuscript in the Oxford University Bodleian Library. However, there was no proof that Tolkien worked on the project. Originally, the connection of the notes and draft style manuscript to what is now known as Language and Human Nature was not evident to Beebe. It was some time later that he realized what the notes in the book were indicators of the beginnings of the planned project between Lewis and Tolkien. Beebe relied on the help of other prominent C. S. Lewis scholars who are familiar with Lewis' handwriting to carefully transcribe all of the written words in the manuscript. Beebe teaches a reoccurring summer abroad course at Oxford titled "C.S. Lewis: Chronicles of a Master Communicator" about C. S. Lewis and communication sponsored by the Communication Studies Department at Texas State. In 2016 Beebe discovered an unpublished poem by C.S. Lewis in the Oxford University Bodleian library.