C. S. Lewis, was oddly enough, probably more famous when he was alive than he is now. Best known for his Narnia series of books published between 1949 and 1954, Lewis’s output was more extensive, including a science fiction trilogy, religious writings and Screwtape. In Paul Simpson's, A Brief Guide to C. S. Lewis: From Mere Christianity to Narnia, the author takes a deeper look at this Christian thinker.

The information included is not encyclopedic in nature, nor does it delve deeply into Lewis’s Christian beliefs and how they affected his writing, Simpson points the readers to other books if that is your wish.

The book is structured in four sections, the first of which is a fifty plus autobiography of Lewis, here the book looks at Lewis’s early life as well as the loss of his Christian faith and its rediscovery, in part aided by his friend J. R. R. Tolkien. Lewis, in many ways, led an unconventional life which brought him both great joy, in his marriage, and tragedy, when he lost his wife and finally lost his own battle with life.

Many of the books which have covered Lewis’s life have concentrated on the effects which Christianity played in his writing and although this is an important aspect of his writing, if you’re looking for more of an overview of the man’s life and work, then this particular book is more than sufficient to act as a jumping off point of more serious reading.

Having taken a tour of his life the book moves on to his literary output. Because of their importance, and because they constituted the greater part of his novels, the Narnia books get the greater part of this section. Each is given a shortened synopsis of the story, interesting to see the differences, especially between the newer films and the original books, before moving on to pertinent facts revolving around the novel. Simpson has chosen to cover the books in their chronological order, rather than the order of publication. There is much to discover in this section, for instance I never could work out why there was a lamppost in Narnia.

The third section takes a look at Lewis’s religious writings. What may seem like a dry subject is made more interesting with Simpson’s intelligent writing. The last section looks at the various adaptations of the Narnia books. Lewis was not a great fan of having his book adapted for either film or television, mostly because he was not enamoured of Disney, so it is unsurprising that none appeared until after his death.

I am old enough to remember the first television version of the show and over the years and with the advances in CGI, the ability to bring talking animals to life has improved, although for my money the best adaptation was the 1987 BBC version. There is a quick whistle-stop tour through versions of Narnia on stage and audio, before the book wraps with a bibliography.

As a brief guide to the man and his works, it works very well and Simpson has impressively condensed a lot of information into the book. If you want to know more about Lewis without getting bogged down in all the religious iconography, you could do worse than start here.

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Charles Packer