About Bodleian Library
Bodleian Library is the library of Oxford University and one of the oldest libraries in the world. The original university library in the fourteenth century is housed in a room above the church of St Mary the Virgin. Over time, there needs to be more room for all the books. Around 1489, they are placed, with the library of Duke Humfrey of Gloucester (1390–1447), in a room built above the Divinity School. For several reasons, Duke Humfrey’s Library is empty of books and furniture by 1556. In 1598, the library is refounded by the English diplomat and scholar Sir Thomas Bodley (1545–1613), after whom Bodleian Library is named. In 1602, the library is opened to the public. The other parts of Bodleian Library, which adjoin Duke Humfrey’s Library, are added later in the century. Since the seventeenth century, Bodleian Library has been a copyright library, entitled to a free copy of every book published in Britain. Combined with countless donations over the centuries, the Bodleian Library contains millions of books today.
English Literature in the Sixteenth Century, Excluding Drama
In 1951, Magdalen College, Oxford University, gives C.S. Lewis a year off from college duties to complete his most ambitious scholarly work: a history of English literature from the sixteenth century. In 1935, the Delegates of Oxford University Press conceive the idea of the Oxford History of English Literature. It is considered a series of twelve volumes, each of which will be a single author’s work. In June 1935, Lewis is asked to write Volume 3, on the sixteenth century, and he agrees to write it. A lot of the reading work for the book he does in the Duke Humphrey’s reading room of Bodleian Library. He writes much of the book by the time he gives The Clark Lectures in April and May 1944. Lewis then delivers four lectures entitled ‘Studies in Sixteenth-Century Literature’ at Trinity College, Cambridge University. In 1952, the first draft of Lewis’s book is completed. Revisions, bibliography, and chronological tables take another year, and in September 1954, English Literature in the Sixteenth Century, Excluding Drama, is published. In 1990, several of the names of the original works in the series are changed. Lewis’s volume is given the new title Poetry and Prose in the Sixteenth Century.
C.S. Lewis at Bodleian Library
Bodleian Library contains one of the two largest collections of manuscripts by C.S. Lewis. The other is in the Marion E. Wade Center of Wheaton College, Illinois (USA). In 1976, Bodleian Library begins its C.S. Lewis Collection when Sister Penelope (1890–1977), theologian and sister of the Convent of the Community of St Mary the Virgin at Wantage, donates her fifty-six letters from Lewis. Walter Hooper (1931–2020), former secretary and biographer of Lewis and collector and editor of his writings, believes that Bodleian Library is the right place for Lewis’s papers, because Lewis often worked there. From 1968, Hooper collects Lewis’s manuscripts on behalf of Bodleian Library. Today, the Bodleian C.S. Lewis Collection contains letters, the entire manuscript of some of Lewis’s books, fragments of books, the originals of many of his essays and shorter works, and some hundreds of Lewis’s books in translations.
The Lewis Family Papers
Bodleian Library also contains a microfilm of The Lewis Family Papers, or Memoires of the Lewis Family 1850–1930. They include diaries, letters, photographs, and other family mementoes of the Lewis family up to 1930, compiled by Warren Lewis (1895–1973). Father Albert Lewis (1863–1929) kept most of the family papers, including much of the correspondence with his sons Warren and Clive. After the death of Father Albert in September 1929, Warren proposes that he should edit these family papers, type them, and produce a family history that covers the years from 1850 to 1930. Clive agrees, and from 1933 to 1935, eleven thick volumes appear, constituting The Lewis Family Papers. The original typescript is willed to the Marion E. Wade Center by Warren at his death in 1973.
Sources
Walter Hooper, C.S. Lewis. Companion & Guide
Jeffrey Schultz & John West, The C.S. Lewis Readers’ Encyclopedia