Warren Lewis
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Major Warren Hamilton (W.H.) Lewis (June 16, 1895 – April 9, 1973) was a soldier and historian, brother of noted Irish Oxford and Cambridge don and author C.S. Lewis. Warren Lewis was a supply officer in the British army during and after World War I, and after retiring in 1932 and coming to live with his brother in Oxford, was one of the founding members of the Inklings, an informal Oxford literary society. He wrote on French history, and served as his brother's secretary for the later years of C.S. Lewis's life.
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[edit] Brother of C.S. Lewis
C.S. Lewis referred to his older brother, Warren (“Warnie”), as “my dearest and closest friend.” The lifelong bond formed as the boys played together in their home on the outskirts of Belfast, writing and illustrating stories for their created world called "Boxen" (a combination of India and a previous incarnation called "Animal-Land"). In 1908 their mother died from cancer and as their father grieved her C.S. ("Jack") and Warren Lewis were left with only each other for comfort and support. Shortly after their mother's death, Jack was sent across the channel to join Warren Lewis at an English boarding school called Wynyard in Watford, just northwest of London, where they both suffered under an insane headmaster named Robert Capron. In 1909, Warren Lewis transferred to Malvern College in Worcestershire (western England) and was followed there by his brother a few years later. Warren Lewis completed his education at Malvern in 1913, took private studies with W.T. Kirkpatrick for four months in preparation for the army entrance exam, and finished 21st among over 201 candidates taking the exam, entitling him to a "prize cadetship" with which he entered the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst in February of 1914. He was appointed a commission as a second lieutenant in the Royal Army Service Corps after only nine months of training (due to wartime need) and was sent to France in November, 1914 to serve with the 4th Company 7th Divisional Train British Expeditionary Force.
Although their careers took widely different turns, the two lived together much of their lives. As a career army officer in the RASC, Warren Lewis served in such postings as Sierra Leone and China. After retiring with the rank of captain (he was granted a temporary rank of major when recalled to active duty in 1940) from 18 years of active service in 1932, he took up residence at the Kilns (Headington, Oxford), where he lived until after his brother’s death in 1963.
Warren Lewis returned to belief in Christianity five months before his brother’s conversion, in 1929. He was a frequent participant in weekly meetings of the Inklings and recorded the flavor of them in many of his diary entries. During the decade of the 1930s, the Lewis brothers undertook eight annual walking tours of up to fifty miles (80 km), which Warren years later recalled with fondness, saying, "And jolly good fun they were too." Warren Lewis's 40-year battle with alcoholism went through periods of success and failure and his drinking binges concerned and worried his brother.
[edit] Writings
Upon his first retirement in 1932, Warren Lewis edited the Lewis family papers. He was briefly recalled for active service in World War II. During his final retirement he turned to a subject of his lifelong interest: the history of 17th-century France. As W.H. Lewis, he published seven books on France during the times of Louis XIV, including The Splendid Century: Life in the France of Louis XIV and Levantine Adventurer: The travels and missions of the Chevalier d'Arvieux, 1653–1697.
After C.S. Lewis died in 1963, Warren edited the first published edition of his brother's letters (1966), adding a memoir of his brother as a preface to the letters. Later editions of these letters were edited by Walter Hooper.
Before his death, Warren Lewis deposited many of the Lewis family papers, including surviving papers of C.S. Lewis and himself, in the Marion E. Wade Collection of Wheaton College. In 1982, selections from Warren Lewis's diary were published under the title "Brothers and Friends".
[edit] Publications
- Warren Lewis. Memoirs of the Lewis Family: 1850-1930. Privately printed in 1933.
- W.H. Lewis. The Splendid Century: Some Aspects of French Life in the Reign of Louis XIV. Eyre & Spottiswoode. London. 1953.
- W.H. Lewis. The Sunset of the Splendid Century: The Life and Times of Louis Auguste de Bourbon, Duc de Maine, 1670-1736. Eyre & Spottiswoode. London. 1955.
- W.H. Lewis. Assault on Olympus: The Rise of the House of Gramont between 1604 and 1678. Andre Deutsch. London. 1958.
- W.H. Lewis. Louis XIV: An INformal Portrait. Andre Deutsch. London. 1959.
- W.H. Lewis. The Scandalous Regent: A Life of Philippe, Duc d'Orleans, 1674-1723, and of his family. Andre Deutsch. London. 1961.
- W.H. Lewis. Levantine Adventurer: The Travels and Missions of the Chevalier d'Arvieux, 1653-1697. Andre Deutsch. London. 1962.
- W.H. Lewis. Memoirs of the Duc de Saint-Simon. B.T. Batsford. London. 1964.
- W.H. Lewis. Letters of C.S. Lewis. Geoffrey Bles Ltd. London. 1966.
[edit] Related Works
- Diana Pavlac Glyer The Company They Keep: C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien as Writers in Community. Kent State University Press. Kent Ohio. 2007. ISBN 978-0-87338-890-0
- Clyde S. Kilby and Marjorie Lamp Mead. Brothers and Friends: The Diaries of Major Warren Hamilton Lewis. Harper & Row Publishers. San Francisco. 1982. ISBN 0-06-064575-X
