Which medieval literary scholar did C.S. Lewis marry in 1956?

C.S. Lewis married Joy Davidman in 1956.

Joy Davidman was an American writer and poet who became a close friend of Lewis before their marriage. They first had a civil marriage ceremony at the register office in Oxford in April 1956. A Christian marriage ceremony followed in March 1957 at the Church of England parish church of Holy Trinity, Headington.

Davidman was diagnosed with cancer shortly after the civil marriage. Lewis’s relationship with her and her illness influenced A Grief Observed, which he published in 1961 under the pseudonym N.W. Clerk. The book records his anger, doubt, and mourning rather than offering a conventional biography of their marriage.

Davidman died in 1960. Lewis later helped raise her two sons, Douglas and David. Their relationship was dramatized in the film Shadowlands, though the film changes or compresses some details of their lives.