At least one new Lewis essay

Over at Christianity Today, Stephanie L. Derrick presents the news that she has found two previously forgotten articles, at least one of which is certainly by C. S. Lewis. Both were printed in The Strand, a preeminent English magazine famous for being the first publisher of most of Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories. The first article, “A Christmas Sermon for Pagans,” is certainly by Lewis. The second, “Cricketer’s Progress” is signed “Clive Hamilton,” one of Lewis’s known pseudonyms, and has certain Lewisian qualities. However, Lewis’s oft-stated complete apathy toward anything having to do with sports makes me doubt the attribution.

How did these articles remain unknown so long? Derrick explains:

Part of the reason that I found these articles in 2013 is timing. Soon after Lewis died in 1963, his posthumous editor Walter Hooper cataloged all of the Lewis publications he could find (Lewis not keeping a record of his own). The Strand, however, wasn’t indexed until 1983, well after Lewis’s official bibliography was published.

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