Which poet and novelist did C.S. Lewis marry in 1956?

C.S. Lewis married the poet and novelist Joy Davidman in 1956.

Joy Davidman was an American writer who had published poetry, novels, and other work before meeting Lewis. The two developed a close intellectual friendship through correspondence. They were legally married in a civil ceremony at Oxford in April 1956, partly so Davidman could remain in the United Kingdom.

Lewis later came to regard the marriage as a true marital relationship, and they held a Christian ceremony in March 1957. The couple’s time together was short because Davidman was diagnosed with cancer and died in 1960. Their relationship became the subject of Lewis’s reflections in A Grief Observed, published under a pseudonym in 1961.

The 1993 film Shadowlands dramatized their relationship, but it changes or compresses some events. Davidman should not be confused with Lewis’s literary friends Dorothy L. Sayers or Charles Williams.