Who was C.S. Lewis’s American-born wife, whom he married in 1956?

C.S. Lewis married the American-born writer Joy Davidman in 1956.

Davidman was an author and poet who had been born in New York City in 1915. She first became acquainted with Lewis through correspondence after reading his books, and she later moved to England. Their civil marriage took place in April 1956 at Oxford Register Office.

The couple’s relationship was initially followed by a Christian marriage ceremony in 1957 at the Church of England parish church of St Mary’s, Headington. Lewis’s account of Davidman’s illness and death later inspired A Grief Observed, which he first published in 1961 under the pseudonym N.W. Clerk.

Davidman died of cancer in 1960. Their marriage lasted only a few years, but it became one of the most important personal relationships in Lewis’s later life.