Sleuthing C.S. Lewis: More Light in the Shadowlands

by Kathryn Lindskoog

Sleuthing C. S. Lewis is the latest installment in the story of the most bizarre literary and religious scandal of the late twentieth century. Within a few months of C. S. Lewis's death in 1963, certain facts about his life were already being fictionalized and his literary leavings were being contaminated with fakery. This was the beginning of one of the most audacious literary hoaxes on record, and it's still going on today.

Year after year, the fraud has been promoted by public relations and protected by secrecy. Year after year, Lindskoog has explored the fraud farther. The result is a gripping tale with an amazing cast of characters and new developments every year. This is scholarship packed with human interest and suspense.

Reading this book is not only an excursion into realms of forgery, imposture, and cover-up, but also an insightful excursion into little-known aspects of C. S. Lewis's life. It offers rare glimpses of Lewis from his teens to his final day, and it uncovers important facts about his beloved brother Warren.

This is a gripping tale of literary detective work, with an amazing cast and up-to-the-moment developments. It is packed with human interest and suspense. The content is complex, but the writing is colorful, clear, and concise. Although scandalous, this book is full of goodwill and laced with wit. Lindskoog shows how exciting and influential good scholarship can be.

C. S. Lewis on Kathryn Lindskoog: In 1957 C. S. Lewis sent a letter to Kathryn Lindskoog in which he included this unique commendation: "You are in the centre of the target everywhere. For one thing, you know my work better than anyone else I've met; certainly better than I do myself… But secondly, you (alone of the critics I've met) realize the connection, or even the unity, of all the books—scholarly, fantastic, theological—and make me appear a single author, not a man who impersonates half a dozen authors, which is what I seem to most. This wins really very high marks indeed… If you understand me so well you will understand other authors too. I hope we shall have some really useful critical works from your hand."

"If you pretend to be a serious Lewis scholar, you have to have this book, because it is certainly not going to go away. I think what's been done to C. S. Lewis is unconscionable." --Algis Budrys Editor of Tomorrow: Speculative Fiction Magazine

"An extraordinary book... Her thesis is that C. S. Lewis' posthumous books are at least partly forged... I—and millions of others—would like to know if there is indeed a 'Lewisgate' scandal..."—Arthur C. Clarke in his acceptance speech for his Honorary Doctorate at the University of Liverpool

"With meticulous detail, painstaking research, and flashes of humor, she reveals a pattern of misinformation, subtle compromise, incestuous management, and outright perfidy in the posthumous legacy of Lewis publishing. I stand in awe of her achievement."—Bob Darden, editor of The Door and assistant professor at Baylor University

Genres: Nonfiction, Biography

416 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2001

Reviews

[Douglas Wilson · Rating 4 out of 5]

At certain places, this book was far too thorough -- like killing ants with a canoe paddle -- which gives off an obsessive feel. But at other places, there are points where the book is devastating. At a minimum, when all the players are dead and politics is out of the picture, this question needs to be examined independently. The question I am referring to, the question before the house, is whether Walter Hooper has been a faithful and reliable executor of the Lewis literary estate.

[Adam Ross · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good and also disturbing.

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

An expansion of Kathryn Lindskoog's theory that parts of the works published in CS Lewis' name after his death are forgeries by Walter Hooper.

She was particularly hard I thought as she criticized Hooper because he got the date of a meeting wrong. He was one day out in his account several years after the event. A reasonable lapse of memory I would think.

Worth reading but I don't think she has proved her case.