“Colin Duriez, the world’s leading expert on Lewis and Tolkien, takes a look at C.S. Lewis from a slightly different angle – through the eyes of his closest friends.”

“Read about Janie Moore, and why Clive moved in with his friend’s bereaved mother till she died. Here about the pub-going antics of the Inklings, how Lewis’ Oxford contemporaries downed pints of Cider and helped to shape his faith and literary skill. Learn about Lewis’ older brother, his life-long friend Arthur Greeves and all these others that influenced him over the years.”

“By reading ‘C.S. Lewis: A Biography of Friendship’ you’ll discover, or perhaps re-discover, the brilliant imagination of the creator of Narnia, and the fascinating mind of a converted atheist.”

An Oxford student of C.S. Lewis said he found his new tutor interesting, and was told by J.R.R. Tolkien: "Interesting? Yes, he's certainly that. You'll never get to the bottom of him."

You can learn a great deal about people by their friends and nowhere is this more true than in the case of C.S. Lewis, the remarkable academic, author, populariser of faith and creator of Narnia. He lost his mother early in life, and became estranged from his father, much to his regret. Throughout his life, key relationships mattered deeply to him, from his early days in the north of Ireland and his schooldays in England, as still a teenager in the trenches of World War One, and then later in Oxford.

The friendships he cultivated throughout his life proved to be vital, influencing his thoughts, his beliefs and his writings. What did Arthur Greeves, a life-long friend from his adolescence, bring to him? How did J.R.R. Tolkien, and the other members of the now famous Inklings, shape him? Why, in his early twenties, did he move in with a single mother twice his age, Janie Moore, and live with her for so many years until her death? And why did he choose to marry so late? What of the relationship with his alcoholic and gifted brother, who eventually joined his unusual household?

In this sparkling new biography, which draws on material not previously published, Colin Duriez brings C.S. Lewis and his friendships to life.