Once best known as a Christian apologist and the author of The Screwtape Letters, and admired by at least two generations of scholars as a teacher and literary historian, C. S. Lewis may eventually be most famous for the seven books, collectively referred to as the Narnian Chronicles, that he wrote for children. Clive Staples Lewis was born in Belfast, Ireland, on 29 November 1898, the younger son of Albert Lewis, a solicitor of Welsh extraction, and Flora Hamilton, a brilliant mathematician of an old Irish family. His family was addicted to nicknames, and he was called Jack all his life. He had a close relationship with his older brother, Warren ("Warnie"), with whom he was to live for the better part of his adult life. Lewis was only nine when his mother died of cancer, an event about which he rarely talked or wrote but one of profound impact on his entire life.
