C. S. Lewis and a Chronicle of the Moores‪.‬

The course of C. S. Lewis's life (b. 29 November 1898) was deeply affected by the death in action of Edward Francis Courtenay Moore (b. 17 November 1898) at Pargny in France on 24 March, 1918. Lewis and Moore had met when inducted into the University Officer's Training Corps of the British army in 1917, and formed a friendship that Lewis was to honour in the extreme. However, details of Moore's Irish family background are scanty in the Lewis biographies, (1) especially as regards his father. The object of this article is to give some more information on that matter, with a view to better telling the story to which it belongs, a story integral to Lewis's personal history. When teaching English Literature, Lewis was accustomed to dismiss the relevance of biographical considerations. However, it is the case that Lewis's own oeuvre is clearly and profoundly linked to the life-commitments about which he became close to belligerently frank, even in academic settings, where such was frowned upon. Further, he wrote two autobiographical memoirs, the first Surprised by Joy (1955) that made measured disclosures about his early life, and the second, A Grief Observed (1961), (2) that is a searing revelation of his reaction to the death of his wife. Perhaps these facts give sufficient leave to proceed as planned.