Which woman did C.S. Lewis marry in 1956?

C.S. Lewis married Joy Davidman in 1956. Davidman was an American writer and poet who had become a friend and correspondent of Lewis before their marriage.

The couple’s civil marriage took place in Oxford in April 1956. Lewis later sought a Christian marriage ceremony, which was conducted by his friend and clergyman Peter Bide in March 1957 at the Church of England parish church of Holy Trinity, Headington Quarry.

Davidman was diagnosed with cancer, and the illness shaped the final years of their relationship. She died in 1960. Lewis later wrote A Grief Observed about the experience of mourning her, initially publishing the book under the pseudonym N.W. Clerk.

Davidman is sometimes described only as Lewis’s correspondent, but she was also a published author in her own right. Her relationship with Lewis has been portrayed in biographies, documentaries, and the film Shadowlands, although dramatizations do not reproduce every biographical detail exactly.