J.I.M. Stewart

This is a collection of essays, old and new, by diverse hands, brought together by James T. Como, a Professor of Rhetorical Communication in the City University of New York. He tells us in an introduction: ‘Now several societies exist for the purpose of studying Lewis’s thoughts; film rights to several of his books have been purchased, and filmed documentaries of his life have been produced; both popular and scholarly books on Lewis are being published with increasing frequency (so that the Modern Language Association cites Lewis as one of the most rapidly increasing objects of literary study in the world).’ Another critic, Mr Eugene McGovern, who ‘works in the field of casualty insurance on actuarial matters’, and who, with the exception of Professor Como himself, is the only contributor to the volume not to have been personally acquainted with Lewis, records the further impressive fact that Lewis’s works ‘at present sell at about two million copies per year’.