Questions About The C.S. Lewis Hoax

Reader Q&A

To ask other readers questions about The C.S. Lewis Hoax, please sign up.

Answered Questions (1)

Okay--what exactly is the C.S. Lewis hoax? I saw this book at a book sale but didn't buy it.

Sue Mosher Got this from a review on Amazon. Hope it helps:
Lord Acton said that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. St. Paul said that the lo…moreGot this from a review on Amazon. Hope it helps:
Lord Acton said that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. St. Paul said that the love of money is the root of all evil. These two principles have combined in the C. S. Lewis literary estate. As one of the many economically foolish things CSL did in his life, he left the management of his literary estate to two friends who did not have the experience or time to manage it. At the first opportunity his friends unloaded the management upon the first person handy, a student from America who was keenly interested in Lewis' books and occasionally visited him in the last summer of his life.
Predictable results occurred. This person wielded power over publishers who made huge profits from the books. He had the power to say which academics had access to certain Lewis archives and which got permission to quote Lewis. The publishers had to include this person's book introductions in which he rewrote himself in a favorable light into history. Ambitious specialists needed to agree with the claims. One such claim was that this person was Lewis' live in, full time, private secretary for several years. This person also "discovered" many unknown Lewis literary works and revisions of existing works that were significantly lower in literary quality than the original, known Lewis literature and in some cases contained religious and ethical themes that were the exact opposite of Lewis' adamantly held views.
In this book Kathryn Lindskoog does a thorough job of investigative journalism in deflating much of the rewritten history and "new" Lewis works with documentary evidence and eye witness accounts. This book reads much like a Chapman Pincher espionage expose. This book attracted much attention, and further eye witness accounts and leads to more documentary evidence and was followed by a second book, "Light in the Shadow Lands," five years later.(less)

flag

Unanswered Questions

About Goodreads Q&A

Ask and answer questions about books!

You can pose questions to the Goodreads community with Reader Q&A, or ask your favorite author a question with Ask the Author.

See Featured Authors Answering Questions

Learn more