CS Lewis on His Own Writing Style and That of Author John Bunyan, Whose Great Work He Allegorized

This unpublished letter was acquired directly from the recipient and has never before been offered for sale

C. S. Lewis was both a noted author and a lay theologian, whose path to Christianity is well documented, in no small part due to his own work. He remains well known today for his Chronicles of Narnia, which has been adapted into a series of movies. His 1933 novel, The Pilgrim’s Regress, is a book of allegorical fiction, and is his first published work of prose fiction. It charts the progress of a fictional character named John through a philosophical landscape in search of the Island of his desire. Lewis described the novel to his publisher as “a kind of Bunyan up to date,” in reference to John Bunyan’s 17th century novel The Pilgrim’s Progress, recast with the politics, ideologies, philosophy, and aesthetic principles of the early 20th century. As such, the character struggles with the modern phoniness, hypocrisy, and intellectual vacancy of the Christian church, Communism, Fascism, and various philosophical and artistic movements.

Lewis’s intention in writing this allegory was not to align himself with Bunyan’s Pilgrim. It was more a journey of his own and charts his own circuitous philosophical route.

John Tuhey received a Master of Arts in English from the University Of Rhode Island. The final requirement for that degree was to present a thesis on a research proposition historically related to the works of allegory in two significant works: The Pilgrims Progress by John Bunyan and The Pilgrims Regress by Lewis. Tuhey wrote to Lewis, asking about the literary mechanisms employed by Lewis in relation to Bunyan, and wondering whether Lewis was not the modernist to Bunyan’s medievalism. Lewis did not accept this premise and wrote back clarifying.

Autograph letter signed, August 24, 1963, Oxford, to John Tuhey, about Bunyan, himself, and medieval and modern literature. “I am not well at present and can’t enter at all fully into your problem. But I don’t think you can take Bunyan and me as examples of medieval and modern. For (a) Bunyan is not medieval. For a genuine medieval allegory you must go back to the Pilgrimage of Human Life by Deguileville, translated by Lydgate, printed by the Early English Text Society. (b) It is doubtful if I am at all typically modern. Rex Warner or Kafka are real modern allegorists. (c) My book, in title, is modeled on Bunyan.” His naming of Kafka as a “real modern allegorist”, and declining the label for himself, are especially significant.

This unpublished letter was acquired directly from the recipient and has never before been offered for sale.