Who became C.S. Lewis’s wife in 1956?

Joy Davidman became C.S. Lewis’s wife in 1956. The American writer and poet first met Lewis through correspondence and later moved to England, where their friendship developed into a close relationship.

Lewis and Davidman were married in a civil ceremony at Oxford on 23 April 1956. Their relationship is discussed in biographies of Lewis and was later dramatized in the film Shadowlands. The marriage lasted until Davidman’s death from cancer in 1960.

Some accounts distinguish the civil marriage from the Christian ceremony held later at the Church of England parish church of Holy Trinity, Headington, in 1957. That ceremony was performed by Lewis’s friend and fellow clergyman Peter Bide. Davidman’s life and death also influenced Lewis’s later reflections on grief, especially the work published as A Grief Observed.