The C.S. Lewis Hoax

When THE C. S. LEWIS HOAX was published in 1988 it immediately aroused a tumult of praise and protest.

Five Stars

The WEST COAST REVIEW OF BOOKS (otherwise known as BOOKS/100 REVIEWS ) reviewed well over 3000 books from 1984 to 1989, but only 28 received five-star reviews. One of the 28 was The C.S. Lewis Hoax. Here are selections from that review:

"The 'Mere' Christian, C. S. Lewis, is unique: he was a scholar among scholars, self-described as an 'academic prig,' yet he is an international best-selling author. But Kathryn Lindskoog has similar claims to virtuosity; she is an academic researcher of redoubtable powers, but she also writes English that is satisfying for its own sake...

"Her story is dramatic: she asserts, with impressive documentation, that much of what has been published by or about Lewis since his death has been fabricated, seemingly for the personal aggrandizement of his literary executor, the personable Anglican priest Walter Hooper. In particular, she discredits the posthumous Lewis novel The Dark Tower, and succeeds in making plausible suggetions as to when, by whom, and under what inspiration it was in fact written... The irregularities -- to use a mild word -- that she establishes are shocking...

"This small book is a masterpiece of both research and writing; even those with little interest in literature will appreciate the strength and subtlety of the arguments, and the clarity (and charity!) of the style."

A.N. Wilson's Attack

England's popular and flashy novelist A. N. Wilson claims to be horrified by Kathryn Lindskoog's C.S. Lewis Hoax. In the NEW YORK TIMES and his book C.S. Lewis, Wilson used his fiction-writing talent to describe Lindskoog and Hoax. He invented a variety of comic details such as her thinking 46 is a magic number and that she was mystically married to C. S. Lewis as a girl. He also invented an imaginary British publisher and imaginary testing of The Dark Tower. (Wilson wrote this under contract to Collins, publisher of The Dark Tower. )

Dr. Gilbert Meilaender of Oberlin College responded in THE CHRISTIAN CENTURY, "Wilson very quickly dismisses the questions raised recently by Kathryn Lindskoog in The C.S. Lewis Hoax, asserting incorrectly that her central thesis has been disproved. In brief, Lindskoog argues that Hooper systematically misrepresented his relationship with Lewis... and she claims that 'The Dark Tower'... is a forgery..."

The Controversy

Read the petition from The C. S. Lewis Foundation for Truth in Publishing

"Dynamite, if true."
--Reviewer in ABORIGINAL SCIENCE FICTION

"I read C.S. Lewis Hoax with horrified fascination... for the sake of C. S. Lewis and his canon an important [story] to tell."
--Frederick Buechner

"Lindskoog's style is readable, and her argument unfolds compellingly. Bit by bit, she draws a dense curtain of misrepresentation to reveal Walter Hooper, like the Wizard of Oz ... busy at the controls of an impressive illusion."
--reviewer in EXTRAPOLATION, the science fiction journal of Kent State University Press

"This is an appalling book. That ... it should be issued by a Christian publisher festooned with a broadside of apparently laudatory comments from old friends of Lewis (Dom Bede Griffiths, George Sayer), Lewis scholars (Joe R. Christopher, Nancy-Lou Patterson), and professional Christian writers (Sheldon Vanauken, Frederick Buechner, Walter Wangerin) is nothing short of amazing."
--Reviewer in MYTHLORE

"Cover-up, innuendo, and suppression all add up to the continuing mystery. G. K. Chesterton would have been intrigued."
--Del Hafer, in BOOKSTORE JOURNAL

"It's possible that this little book from a small West Coast publisher may have ignited one of the hottest literary scandals in many decades."
--Seth Williamson, in RICHMOND NEWS LEADER

"...the cloud of Kathryn Lindskoog's C. S. LEWIS HOAX loomed menacingly on the horizon."
--Reviewer in EUROPEAN CHRISTIAN BOOKSELLER REVIEW

"The shepherd David going up against a mighty Goliath, armed with nothing but the sling of discovery and the stones of inquiry."
--Phil Lollar, co-author of "Adventures in Odyssey"

"It reads like a detective story and is as exciting as Sherlock Holmes."
--Bede Griffiths, personal friend of C. S. Lewis

"I found The C. S. Lewis Hoax fascinating. C. S. Lewis himself is the hero, a brooding presence."
--Sheldon Vanauken, personal friend of C. S. Lewis and author of A Severe Mercy

"Reading the book is much like reading a mystery novel--you're never quite sure where the next clue will turn up."
--THE CHRISTIAN COMMUNICATOR

"I spent the afternoon reading it instead of working. Fascinating!"
--Philip Yancey, prizewinning author

"The detailed research and challenging analyses should generate much praise..."
--Lloyd Alexander, Newbery Medal author

"C. S. and W. H. Lewis would both approve."
--Stephen Schofield, editor of THE CANADIAN C.S. LEWIS JOURNAL

"The book, it is true, is almost laughable at points. But not often. It is too filled with hatred and resentment to be very funny, too disturbing a reminder of how malignant the imagination can be when it puts the worst possible construction on the life and motives of another...The book is beyond a joke."
--Michael Piret in THE CHRISTIAN CENTURY

"Many books seem to promise controversy and fail to deliver. This one delivers, in chapter after astonishing chapter."
--Kath Filmer, in THE COURIER-MAIL of Australia

"Samuel Johnson would have loved it."
--Robert Evans, in NATIONAL HONORS REPORT

"A book that had to be written..."
--Pat A. Hargis, in CHRISTIAN SCHOLAR'S REVIEW

Le Guin on Liking Lewis

The world's bestselling female science fiction author, Ursula Le Guin, attacked C. S. Lewis's novel The Dark Tower in her book DANCING AT THE EDGE OF THE WORLD. She said THE DARK TOWER is an unconscious venture into the dark with embarrassingly naive sexual overtones, and it is "occultism, not science."

But after reading The C.S. Lewis Hoax Le Guin saw Lewis differently. "A fascinating piece of literary detective work, which may serve to free C.S. Lewis from the shadows of a misogyny and arrogance which it appears may have been cast upon him, rather than by him. I finished it liking Lewis, as man and artist, better than I had ever done before. Although some of the subject matter is rather shocking, the book's temperate, pleasant tone and elegant illustrations make it a pleasure to read."

A Laureate's Opinion

Richard Wilbur is twice winner of the Pulitzer Prize for poetry and served as this nation's second Poet Laureate. He does not pretend to be a judge of the C. S. Lewis controversy. Nevertheless, in 1989 he wrote warmly to Lindskoog, "The C.S. Lewis Hoax is an astonishing and engrossing report. I much admire your tone of humane amusement, which you apply even to Lewis (in a way that would have amused him)..."

Later he reflected, "I think that we can all understand something about the hoaxing impulse. At its simplest, it is the desire to swindle, to deceive for gain. At another and more complex level, it is the desire to seem, temporarily, more clever and interesting than one is. And perhaps, temporarily, to deceive oneself. At a still loftier and wickeder level, it is a desire to tamper with the fabric of reality."