C. S. Lewis
Lewis was commissioned to write the volume "English Literature in the Sixteenth Century (Excluding Drama)" for the Oxford History of English Literature, His book "A Preface to "Paradise Lost"" is still cited as a criticism of that work. His last academic work, "The Discarded Image: An Introduction to Medieval and Renaissance Literature" (1964), is a summary of the medieval world view, a reference to the "discarded image" of the cosmos.
Lewis was a prolific writer, and his circle of literary friends became an informal discussion society known as the "Inklings", including J. R. R. Tolkien, Nevill Coghill, Lord David Cecil, Charles Williams, Owen Barfield, and his brother Warren Lewis. Glyer points to December 1929 as the Inklings' beginning date. Lewis's friendship with Coghill and Tolkien grew during their time as members of the Kolbítar, an Old Norse reading group that Tolkien founded and which ended around the time of the inception of the Inklings. At Oxford, he was the tutor of poet John Betjeman, critic Kenneth Tynan, mystic Bede Griffiths, novelist Roger Lancelyn Green and Sufi scholar Martin Lings, among many other undergraduates. Curiously, the religious and conservative Betjeman detested Lewis, whereas the anti-establishment Tynan retained a lifelong admiration for him.
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 In 2016 Beebe discovered an unpublished poem by C.S. Lewis in the Oxford University Bodleian library.