Who was C.S. Lewis’s wife during the final years of his life?

C.S. Lewis’s wife during the final years of his life was Joy Davidman.

Joy Davidman was an American poet and writer who developed a close intellectual relationship with Lewis through correspondence. They had a civil marriage in 1956, primarily to secure legal protection for Davidman’s residency in the United Kingdom.

The couple later held a Christian marriage ceremony in 1957 at the Church of St Mary in Oxford. Their relationship became central to Lewis’s later life, and Davidman’s illness and death from cancer in 1960 deeply affected him.

Lewis later reflected on grief in A Grief Observed, published in 1961 under the name N.W. Clerk. The book is often treated as autobiographical, though readers sometimes overlook its connection to Davidman and assume Lewis had been married much earlier.