C.S. Lewis was appointed to a Cambridge professorship in 1954.
That year he became the first holder of the newly established chair of Medieval and Renaissance Literature at Magdalene College, Cambridge. The appointment marked a major transition from his long academic career at Oxford’s Magdalen College, where he had taught since 1925.
Lewis continued to live and work in Oxford for much of his life, so the Cambridge appointment did not erase his Oxford identity. He traveled to Cambridge for teaching and academic duties while remaining closely connected with Oxford friends and institutions.
The two colleges have similar names and are easy to mix up. Magdalen College, Oxford, was Lewis’s long-standing fellowship and teaching base; Magdalene College, Cambridge, was the college connected with his 1954 chair.