The C. S. Lewis Foundation for Truth in Publishing

C. S. LEWIS PETITION

(Petition signatures below)

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We the undersigned are concerned about the apparent irregularities in the posthumous C.S. Lewis canon, first investigated in a computer study by C.F. Jones of the University of Florida in 1986, described by Kathryn Lindskoog in The C.S. Lewis Hoax in 1988, and confirmed in 1991 by A.Q. Morton of the University of Glasgow, leading forensic authority on literary forgery. We are concerned because both the complex "Literary Detective" alphabetical analysis by C.F. Jones and the vastly more complex cumulative sum chart sentence analysis by A.Q, Morton refute the authenticity of The Dark Tower. We are also concerned because of A.Q. Morton's report that the central forty percent of the 1990 C.S. Lewis essay "Christian Reunion" clearly matches the statistical pattern of Walter Hooper's writing rather than that of C.S. Lewis.

We are concerned about Kathryn Lindskoog's unanswered charge that the following posthumous works published from 1966 to 1991 have faulty provenance, and we are also concerned about the charge that they all exhibit unLewisian style, taste, beliefs, or values.

1. "Forms of Things Unknown" (Of Other Worlds. London: Collins, 1966.)

2. Narnia fragments ("Past Watchful Dragons" by Walter Hooper in Imagination and the Spirit by Charles Huttar. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1971.)

3. "The Dark Tower" (The Dark Tower. London: Collins, 1977.)

4. "The Man Born Blind" (The Dark Tower. London: Collins, 1977.) 5. LeFay fragment (Past Watchful Dragons by Walter Hooper. New York: Macmillan, 1979.)

6. "Preface to 'Screwtape Proposes a Toast'" (The Screwtape Letters. New York: Macmillan, 1982.)

7. "History of Animal Land" (Boxen. San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1985.)

8. "Encyclopedia Boxoniana" (Boxen. San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1985.)

9. "Modern Man and His Categories of Thought" (Present Concerns. San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1986.)

10. "Christian Reunion" (Christian Reunion. London: Collins, 1990.)

If even half of these twelve posthumous works are not genuine, the Lewis corpus is seriously contaminated. We urge those responsible -- the anonymous owner(s) of the C.S. Lewis literary estate, Walter Hooper, Owen Barfield, Stanley Mattson, the Curtis Brown Literary Agency, HarperCollins, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Macmillan, and Eerdmans -- to begin to ask and answer questions. We suggest that it is time for a variety of influential readers, writers, editors, scholars, and C.S. Lewis societies to begin to freely address the topic in print. We suggest that the anonymous directors of the Marion E. Wade Center at Wheaton College in Illinois include this subject in their sponsored lectures and that they support related research with some of their annual grants in C.S. Lewis studies. We urge the Bodleian Library staff to consult A.Q. Morton and to seek unbiased cumulative sum chart authentication of all posthumous Lewis holdings, both published and unpublished.

We believe that more delay would be inappropriate; Walter Hooper and his defenders have refused to answer questions in 1988 and 1989, refused Kathryn Lindskoog's invitation to public debate in 1990, and refused Professor Don Cregier's invitation to co-sponsor document analysis in 1991. It is time to get the posthumous Lewis canon into the public forum where evidence, logic, and persuasion can begin to validate it or to correct it.

(Thanks to new information, two items on the list of suspect literature have been removed since the petition was signed. They are "Dr. Easley fragment" and "Magdalen College Appendix." Thanks to other new information, if the petition were circulated today two poems attributed to Lewis after his death would be on the petition instead: "A Pageant Played in Vain" and "Finchley Avenue."

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C. S. Lewis Petition Signatories

 

AWARD-WINNING AUTHORS

Lloyd Alexander, winner of the Newbery Medal. Arthur C. Clarke, three-time winner of the Nebula Award, twice winner of the Hugo Award. (See below.)

Katherine Paterson, twice winner of the Newbery Medal, twice winner of the National Book Award.

Tim Powers, twice winner of the Philip K. Dick Memorial Award, winner of the World Fantasy Award.

Robert Siegel, past fellow of National Endowment for the Arts. (See below.)

Richard Wilbur, second Poet Laureate, winner of the National Book Award and the Bollingen Award, twice winner of the Pulitzer Prize.

Gene Wolfe, twice winner of the Nebula Award, winner of the World Fantasy Award, British Fantasy Award, and Prix Apollo.

 

AUTHORS OF BOOKS ABOUT C. S. LEWIS

Michael D. Aeschliman, author of C.S. Lewis and the Restitution of Man. (See below.)

Corbin S. Carnell, author of Bright Shadow of Reality: C.S. Lewis and the Feeling Intellect. (See below.)

Joe R. Christopher, co-author of C.S. Lewis: An Annotated Checklist; author of C.S. Lewis (Twayne's English Authors Series). (See below.)

Lyle Dorsett, author of And God Came In. (See below.)

Carolyn Keefe, author of C.S. Lewis, Speaker and Teacher

Kathryn Lindskoog, author of C.S. Lewis: Mere Christian, The Lion of Judah in Never-Never Land, Around the Year with C.S. Lewis and His Friends, and The C.S. Lewis Hoax.

Gilbert Meilaender, author of The Taste for the Other: The Social and Ethical Thought of C.S. Lewis. (See below.)

 

EDITORSHIPS

Algis Budrys. Editor, Tomorrow: Speculative Fiction.

Vickie Danielsen, Editor, Ponderings, Adventist Women's Institute, Englewood, CO.

Leonard G. Goss, Editor, Crossway Books, Wheaton, IL.

William Hasker, Editor, Christian Scholar's Review. (See below.)

Walter R. Hearn, Editor, American Scientific Affiliation Newsletter, Berkeley, CA.

Rodney Morris, Editor, Multnomah Press, Questar, Sisters, OR.

Ben Patterson, Contributing editor, Leadership, Christianity Today. (See below.)

Christopher Ricks, Co-editor, Oxford's Essays in Criticism. (See below.)

Thomas A. Tenney, Editor, Mark Twain Journal. (See below.)

 

MINISTRIES

D.M. Baumann, Rector, Blessed Sacrament Episcopal Church, Placentia, CA.

Richard Becker, Director of Religious Education, Sacred Heart of Jesus Church, Boulder, CO.

Ralph Blair, Founder of Evangelicals Concerned, New York, NY.

Reverend Albert G. Cohen, Campus Minister, California State University at Los Angeles, CA.

Dr. Kenneth C. Harper, Senior Pastor, First Presbyterian Church, Westminster, CA.

Ben Patterson, Dean of the Chapel, Hope College, Holland, MI.

Larry Repass, Salvation Army Officer, Guatemala City, Guatemala.

Steven Shoemaker, Ph.D., Pastor, McKinley Presbyterian Church, Champaign, IL.

 

ACADEMIC APPOINTMENTS

Michael D. Aeschliman, Ph.D. Lecturer in English Literature, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA.

Alice R. Bergel, Ph.D. Adjunct Professor of Foreign Languages, Chapman University, Orange, CA.

Kurt Bergel, Ph.D. Professor of History, Chapman University, Orange, CA.

Richard W. Bohrer. Professor of Journalism, Liberty University, Lynchburg, VA.

Charles P. Busch, Ph.D. Associate Professor of Philosophy, Arkansas Tech University, AK.

Corbin S. Carnell. Professor of English, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL.

Joe R. Christopher, Ph.D. Professor of English, Tarleton State College, Stephenville, TX.

Arthur C. Clarke, Commander of the British Empire. Chancellor of the University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka.

David G. Clark, Chair of the Division of Religion at Vanguard University, Costa Mesa, CA

John C. Cooper, Ph.D. Professor of Religion, Eastern Kentucky University, Richmond, KY.

The Rev. Lawrence N. Crumb. Reference Librarian (Associate Professor), University of Oregon, Eugene, OR.

Don M. Cregier, Ph.D. Professor of History, University of Prince Edward Island, Canada.

Sharon E. Cregier, Ph.D. Sessions Lecturer, Library Skills, University of Prince Edward Island, Canada.

Lyle Dorsett. Professor of Educational Ministries and Evangelism, Wheaton College.

Gracia Fay Ellwood. Past instructor in the Department of Religion, California State University at Long Beach, CA. (Past editor, Mythlore.)

Ronald Enroth, Ph.D. Professor of Sociology, Westmont College, Santa Barbara, CA.

Robert O. Evans, Ph.D. Professor Emeritus of English and Comparative Literature, University of Kentucky and University of New Mexico.

William Geiger, Ph.D. Professor of English, Whittier College, CA.

David W. Gill, Ph.D. Professor of Applied Ethics, North Park College, Chicago, IL.

W. Fred Graham, Ph.D. Professor of Religious Studies, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI.

William Hasker, Ph.D. Professor of Philosophy, Huntington College, IN.

Virginia K. Hearn. Adjunct Professor, New College for Advanced Christian Studies, Berkeley, CA.

Sandra Kay Heck. Adjunct Faculty, East Tennessee State University, TN

Ron Henderson. Professor of English, Cincinnati Bible College, OH.

Elias D.S. Medeiros. Professor of Missiology, Reformed Theological Seminary, Jackson, MI.

Gilbert Meilaender, Ph.D.. Professor of Religion, Oberlin College, OH.

Dale J. Nelson. Assistant Professor of English, Mayville State University, ND.

Dorothea J. Nelson. Instructor of Library Science, Mayville State University, ND.

Gary Jackson Oliver, Ph.D. Visiting Associate Professor of Marriage and Family Counseling, Denver Seminary, CO.

Nancy-Lou Patterson. Professor Emerita of Fine Arts, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.

Richard V. Pierard, Ph.D. Professor of History, Indiana State University, Terre Haute, IN.

Cornelius Plantinga, Jr. Professor of Systematic Theology, Calvin Theological Seminary, Grand Rapids, MI.

Bernard Ramm, Professor Emeritus, Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Dr. Paulo Ribeiro. Professor of Engineering, Dordt College, Sioux City, IA.

Christopher Ricks. Professor of English, Boston University, MA.

Robert Siegel, Ph.D. Professor of English, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, WI.

Thomas A. Tenney, Ph.D. Professor of English, The Citadel, Charleston, SC.

Doreen Anderson Woods, Ph.D. Instructor in Humanities, Tulsa Junior College, OK. (Founder, Tulsa C.S. Lewis Society.)

W.R. Wortman, Professor of English, Baylor University, Waco, TX

OTHERS

Margaret R. Barkley, B.A., B.Ed, Ottowa, Ontario, Canada

Fay M. Blix, Attorney at Law, Irvine, CA.

Paul H. Borcher, Student, Medieval and Renaissance Studies and Linguistics, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

Mary V. Borhek, Author, Bethlehem, PA.

Marian Flandrick Bray, Author, Santa Ana, CA. Anne Le Brun Burnett, Santa Rosa, CA.

Willard J. Dickerson, Executive Director, Association of Logos Bookstores Nancy J. Doman, Garden Grove, CA.

Brenda Griffing, Freelance Editorial Consultant, Fort Lauderdale, FL

Douglas Hackleman, President, Business & Pleasure Productions, Grand Terrace, CA. (Past editor, Adventist Currents.)

Margot Lawrence, Author, Secretary of the Prayer Book Society, London, England.

Larkette Lein, Convener of Integrity/Southland, Fullerton, CA.

Phil Lollar, Creator of Adventures in Odyssey, Glendora, CA.

James Long, Ph. D., P.E., Consulting Engineer, Sunnyvale , CA

Lynn M. Maudlin, Council of Stewards, Mythopoeic Society, Altadena, CA.

Paul McCusker, Playwright, Colorado Springs, CO

Jan Pendergrass, English teacher, Whittier, CA

Ken Pendergrass, Music teacher, Whittier, CA

Dean C. Picton, Hollywood, FL

Bebe E. Picton, Hollywood, FL

George Prell, Principal Engineer, Fluor Daniel, Irvine, CA

Louise Prell, Vice-president, Opera Pacific Volunteers Guild , Costa Mesa, CA.

Serena Powers, Santa Ana, CA.

Faith A. Sand, Director of Hope Publishing House, Pasadena, CA.

Chuck Schechner, Former owner of Logos Bookstore, Dallas, TX.

Carol R. Smith, Placentia, CA.

Jeff Taylor, Georgetown, KY.

Carolyn L. Vash, Ph.D., Author, Altadena, CA.

Richard D. Vash, Altadena. CA.

Carl S. Weisman, Herndon, VA.

Max Weremchuk, Albsheim, Germany

John G. West, Ph.D., Fellow of the Discovery Institute, Seattle, WA.