In what year was the author C.S. Lewis born?

C.S. Lewis was born in 1898, beginning the life of one of the twentieth century’s most influential Christian writers and literary scholars.

Lewis was born on 29 November 1898 in Belfast, Ireland, then part of the United Kingdom. His birth name was Clive Staples Lewis, although friends and family often called him “Jack,” a nickname he adopted during childhood.

His older brother, Warren Lewis, remained an important companion throughout his life. The brothers later lived together and shared an interest in history, literature, and mythology. These interests strongly shaped Lewis’s later fiction and criticism.

Lewis’s early life in Belfast preceded his education in England and his eventual academic career at Oxford and Cambridge. Readers sometimes confuse his birth year with the dates of his major publications: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe appeared in 1950, while Mere Christianity was published in book form in 1952.