C.S. Lewis

Clive Staples Lewis was a writer, critic, and academic who wrote more than 30 books on topics ranging from religious reflections to romantic science fiction to fantasy.  

Born in Ireland, Lewis lived in England most of his life. He served in the British Army in WWI and then taught at Oxford University for 29 years before taking the Chair of Medieval and Renaissance Literature at Cambridge. He was an active member of the Inklings, a literary discussion group at Oxford that included J.R.R. Tolkien.

Out of the Silent Planet (1938) founded The Space Trilogy, his most popular series for adults. The series criticizes science that ignores the spiritual and presents other worlds in our solar system as purer compared to the fallen Earth.

Lewis is best known for his fantasy series The Chronicles of Narnia (1950–1956), which begins with The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (1950). Over time, the series has sold more than 100 million copies and has been adapted several times into film. The concluding novel, The Last Battle, won a Carnegie Medal the year it was published in 1956.