What was the name of the woman C.S. Lewis married in a civil ceremony in 1956?

The woman C.S. Lewis married in a civil ceremony in 1956 was Joy Davidman.

Joy Davidman was an American writer and poet who had become a Christian before meeting Lewis in person. The couple married in a civil ceremony at Oxford Register Office on 23 April 1956. The marriage initially helped Davidman remain in the United Kingdom when her immigration status became difficult.

Lewis and Davidman later had a Christian wedding at her hospital bedside in March 1957, conducted by his friend Father Walter Adams. Their relationship became a committed partnership, but Davidman was diagnosed with cancer and died on 13 July 1960, aged 45. Lewis later wrote A Grief Observed about the experience of bereavement, originally publishing it under the pseudonym N.W. Clerk.

Readers sometimes call Davidman only Lewis’s “friend” because the civil marriage was private and later in life. She was his wife, and their story inspired the 1993 film Shadowlands, though the film takes dramatic liberties.