What Cambridge college held C.S. Lewis’s professorship from 1954?

Magdalene College, Cambridge, held C.S. Lewis’s professorship from 1954.

In 1954 Lewis became the first holder of the chair of Medieval and Renaissance English at Cambridge University. The position was attached to Magdalene College, whose name is spelled with a final “e,” unlike Magdalen College at Oxford, where Lewis had taught since 1925.

Lewis continued to live primarily in Oxford and traveled to Cambridge for his teaching and academic duties. His appointment recognized his scholarship in English literature, including his work on medieval and Renaissance texts. He remained associated with Cambridge until his death in 1963.

This appointment ended a period in which Lewis had been passed over for an Oxford chair. The Cambridge role gave him a formal professorship and placed his literary scholarship within a university setting distinct from his public reputation as a Christian apologist and children’s author.