Which Oxford college did C.S. Lewis attend as an undergraduate beginning in 1917?

C.S. Lewis attended University College, Oxford, as an undergraduate beginning in 1917. He entered Oxford after serving in the First World War and later completed a highly distinguished academic career there.

Lewis’s studies were interrupted by military service. He served as a second lieutenant in the Somerset Light Infantry and was wounded at the Battle of Arras in 1918. After recovering, he returned to Oxford and pursued a demanding course of study that eventually included classics, philosophy, and English.

University College should not be confused with Magdalen College, where Lewis later held an academic fellowship and taught at Oxford. His association with Magdalen lasted for decades and is often more prominent in biographies, which can lead readers to identify it incorrectly as his undergraduate college.

Lewis achieved first-class results in several Oxford examinations and became a Fellow and Tutor in English at Magdalen College in 1925. He remained at Oxford until moving to Cambridge in 1954, making the distinction between his student and teaching institutions important.