Light in the Shadowlands: Protecting the Real C.S. Lewis

(Questar, 1994; Hope Publishing House, 1995)

In 1978 I first published some questions about Walter Hooper's famous relationship to Lewis. In 1988 Multnomah Press issued The C.S. Lewis Hoax and Walter Hooper waged an all-out campaign against it through public relations expert Stanley Mattson, a professional fundraiser. With a series of completely bogus document tests and a kangaroo-court trial, Mattson managed to get misinformation printed in London's SUNDAY TIMES and other important publications.

Undeterred, in 1994 I published a greatly expanded, updated version of the book titled Light in the Shadowlands: Protecting the Real C.S. Lewis. Mattson promptly engaged attorney Tim Stoen, co-leader of Jim Jones's People's Temple cult (the man who had knowingly triggered the 1978 massacre of 1000 people in Guyana) to bluff temporary managers of Questar Publishers into halting distribution.

Since then I've kept discovering crucial new data and updating the book, expanding it by 40,400 words. The result today is Sleuthing C.S. Lewis: More Light in the Shadowlands, which has been published in August, 2001.

View illustrations from Light in the Shadowlands

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

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Shining Some Light on the Dark Tower:
Not a Lost Lewis Novel After All?

2. Throwing Water on the Bonfire Story:
Not a Literary Rescue After All?

3. Seeing through "Through Joy and Beyond":
Not the Film of a Lifetime After All?

4. Strange Visions and Revisions:
Not the Books Lewis Had In Mind After All?

5. The Most Substantial People:
Not a Flimsy Fiction After All?

6. Will the Real Mrs. Lewis Stand Up:
Not Really Not Really Married After All?

7. Forging a Friendship:
Not a Genuinely Copied Signature After All?

8. They Fall Together:
Not a Stolen Manuscript After All?

9. The Business of Heaven:
Not Unworldly Wisdom After All?

10. Battle for the Dark Tower:
Not a Contest After All?

APPENDICES

Stealing the King's Ring
Facts about Forgery, Letter to LA PAZ
A. N. Wilson Errata
Lewis Petition and Signatories
The Portland Statement
Chronology.

COMMENDATIONS

1. "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."
--Ursula K. Le Guin, winner of four Hugo awards, three Nebula awards, a Newbery Honor Book Citation, and a National Book Award.

2. "No serious student of the life and writings of C. S. Lewis should ignore this book. Kathryn Lindskoog's arguments deserve serious consideration. It is true that false portraits of C. S. Lewis have been and are being painted by his admirers and detractors."
--Lyle Dorsett, Second Curator of the Marion E. Wade Center, author of And God Came In (the biography of Joy Davidman Gresham Lewis)

3. "Adds new, illuminating facets to C. S. Lewis and those around him."
--Lloyd Alexander, Winner of the Newbery Award

4. "I have always found Kathryn Lindskoog's evidence compelling. I do hope she will be heeded."
--Martin E. Marty, Professor of History of Christianity, University of Chicago; editor of Context; senior editor of Christian Century; according to TIME, "the most influential interpreter of religion in the U.S."

5. "Commentaries and studies on Lewis come and go, but none is changing Lewis scholarship as much as Lindskoog's Light in the Shadowlands. It is 'must' reading."
--Terri Williams, Co-founder of the Portland C.S. Lewis Society

6. "I find Light in the Shadowlands fascinating. C.S. Lewis himself is the hero, a brooding presence."
--Sheldon Vanauken, author of A Severe Mercy

7. "I was not only entranced and fascinated, but totally convinced as well. Lindskoog is a thorough and formidable--even a heroic--scholar."
--Tim Powers, Winner of the 1993 World Fantasy Award

8. "Kathryn Lindskoog's book is an admirable piece of writing and detection. It deserves decent and detailed answers. That none have so far been forthcoming, and that she has been treated so shabbily and insultingly, are very damning facts."
--M.D. Aeschliman, Ph.D., author of The Restitution of Man: C.S. Lewis and the Case Against Scientism

9. "A blockbuster, and hard to shoot down."
--Richard Pierard, Professor of History at Indiana State University, co-author of Twilight of the Saints

10. "[This] thesis about the authorship of The Dark Tower certainly seems thoroughly substantiated.
"--Russell Kirk, author of The Conservative Mind

11. "Kathryn Lindskoog knows more about C. S. Lewis than anyone else in this country. This book is a much needed (and well written) continuation of her fight to clear up the scandal surrounding the Lewis estate. It should be read and heeded by everyone who cares about C. S. Lewis."
--Rev. Perry C. Bramlett, C.S. Lewis for the Local Church Interstate Ministries, Louisville, Kentucky

12. "Light in the Shadowlands is written with wit and sparkles with Lindskoog's knowledge of life and of Lewis. Serious scholars and students of C.S. Lewis cannot afford to neglect this provocative book."
--Doreen Anderson Wood, Founder of the Tulsa C. S. Lewis Society

13. "When I first met Kathryn Lindskoog I was impressed with her rigorous mind, her ability to see beyond the surface, her willingness to ask the hard questions and her refusal to settle for sloppy scholarship. Light in the Shadowlands is tangible proof that, twenty years later, Lindskoog has greater skills in looking past the surface, she still has the courage to ask the hard questions and more than ever is committed to accuracy, excellence and truth.

"Light in the Shadowlands is challenging and thought-provoking. Written in a charitable spirit, with conviction and clarity, Lindskoog asks clear questions and presents evidence that demands a verdict. Her legitimate and well-documented concerns cannot be ignored, minimized or brushed aside by anyone who claims to have even a modicum of academic and intellectual integrity."
--Gary J. Oliver, Ph.D., Clinical Director, Southwest Counseling Associates; Visiting Associate Professor, Denver Seminary; co-author of Pressure Points

14. "Light in the Shadowlands is an astonishing and engrossing report. I much admire the tone of humane amusement, which is applied even to Lewis (in a way that would have amused him)."
--Richard Wilbur, Second United States Poet Laureate, twice winner of the Pulitzer Prize, winner of the National Book Award and the Bollingen Prize

15. "If you pretend to be a serious Lewis scholar, you have to have this book, because it is certainly not going to go away. I think what's been done to C. S. Lewis is unconscionable."
--Algis Budrys, Editor of Tomorrow: Speculative Fiction Magazine

16. "Lindskoog is the shepherd David going up against a mighty Goliath, armed with nothing but the sling of discovery and the stones of inquiry."
--Phil Lollar, Creator/co-author of Adventures in Odyssesy

17. "For readers of C.S. Lewis, the questions raised in this witty and profound book could scarcely be more serious."
--W.R. Wortman, Professor of English at Baylor University

18. "At a time when C. S. Lewis is approaching global recognition, Kathryn Lindskoog's book gives careful and scrupulous attention not only to the context of his works but to the integrity of the very texts themselves."
--Nancy-Lou Patterson, Professor Emerita of Fine Arts, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada

19. "Although this book is written in an entertaining way for a broad spectrum of readers, it springs from serious scholarship. There will have to be major revisions in the background of our understanding of Lewis."
--Joe R. Christopher, author of C.S. Lewis, Twayne English Authors Series

20. "Truth uncovering the vicious reality of evil is a recurring theme in genuine C.S. Lewis works. Lindskoog's Light in the Shadowlands is likewise a welcome expose of current counterfeits masquerading as authentic Lewisiana."
--Father Herbert A. Ward, Jr., SSC, Director of St. Jude's Ranch for Children

21. "Millions of readers and admirers of C. S. Lewis owe a debt of gratitude to Mrs. Lindskoog who, by her detective work, has differentiated the authentic writings of the beloved author from various inferior later publications which lack credible authentication."
--The Rev. Canon H. Boone Porter, D. Phil., former professor, the General Theological Seminary; senior editor of The Living Church

22. "Kathryn Lindskoog's lonely, courageous fight against those who abuse the memory of C. S. Lewis reaches its peak with Light in the Shadowlands. With meticulous detail, painstaking research, and flashes of humor, she reveals a pattern of misinformation, subtle compromise, incestuous management, and outright perfidy in the posthumous legacy of Lewis publishing. I stand in awe of her achievement.

"Light in the Shadowlands is a harrowing, revealing -- but wholly necessary labor of love. Moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue."
--Bob Darden, editor of The Door, gospel music editor of Billboard Magazine, professor at Baylor University

23. "The issues Lindskoog raises need careful attention, for they are serious matters that have genuinely puzzled students of Lewis."
--Gilbert Meilaender, Department of Religion at Oberlin College, author ofThe Taste for the Other: The Social and Ethical Thought of C.S. Lewis, and Faith and Faithfulness: Basic Themes in Christian Ethics.

24." It pulls me forward the way a good mystery novel would. I'm by turns appalled, saddened, and fascinated."
--Robert Siegel, Professor of English, University of Wisconsin; author of Alpha Centauri

25. "First-rate detection, each chapter leading further along a path toward full discovery of the chicanery and pseudepigrapha at the heart of Lewisiana. Somewhere in the future scholars are going to draw up lists of "true" and "false" Lewis writings, stories, jokes, obiter dicta. That search for the genuine will be based upon Light in the Shadowlands."
--W. Fred Graham, Professor of Religious Studies, Michigan State University

26. "It appears that there are Watergates and Whitewaters in the Christian literary world. I am surprised that so many who love the writings of C. S. Lewis have chosen to remain deliberately silent or to suppress the evidence they have that his writings have indeed been tampered with. I can vouch for Kathryn Lindskoog's scholarship, integrity, and clear thinking. Her facts ring with truth. In contrast, the loud silence of those who claim to be conveyers of the truth of C.S. Lewis to our generation borders on the obscene."
--Willard Dickerson, Jr., Director of Education and Professional Development, American Booksellers Association

27. "For over twenty-five years C. S. Lewis has been, for me, the greatest and most significant Christian author. Yet some clumsy things have appeared under Lewis's name after his death. As Kathryn Lindskoog makes increasingly clear in Light in the Shadowlands, much of this posthumously published "Lewis" material is shoddy, spurious, and not by Lewis. It is only natural that those interested in Lewis affairs would wish her well in her detective work of trying to establish a genuine Lewis canon."
--Leonard G. Goss, Editor-in-Chief, Crossway Books; coauthor, The Christian Writer's Book; coeditor, Inside Religious Publishing

28. "Unputdownable. A great part of the evidence which Kathryn Lindskoog assembles, although it does not conform to accepted post-modernist dicta, is rigorously argued and cannot be rejected by an unbiased reader. There is some material which, approaching it as I do from an English perspective, I cannot but feel would have been better left out; however, this material in no way invalidates the rest."
--John Docherty, Honorary Editor, The George MacDonald Society

29. "I have come to depend 100% on the accuracy of Kathryn Lindskoog's research and judgments."
--Corbin Scott Carnell, author of Bright Shadows of Reality: C.S. Lewis and the Feeling Intellect

30. "Considering the extensive weight of evidence presented by Kathryn Lindskoog's Light in the Shadowlands, any grand jury in the world would recommend a thorough public hearing of the case."
--Joseph Mayhew, retired Recommending Officer for Science Fiction, Library of Congress (and Senior Acquisitions Librarian for the Caribbean)

31. "I admire the courage displayed in Light in the Shadowlands and feel sure that Lewis will thank Lindskoog when they meet again."
--Mother Thaisia of New Valaam Monastery in Ouzinkie, Alaska

32. "An extraordinary book... Her thesis is that C. S. Lewis' posthumous books are at least partly forged... I--and millions of others--would like to know if there is indeed a 'Lewisgate' scandal..."
--Arthur C. Clarke, in his acceptance speech for his Honorary Doctorate at the University of Liverpool