Who was the American-born poet whom C.S. Lewis married in 1956?

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

Davidman was born Helen Joy Davidman in New York City in 1915. She became a poet and writer, converted to Christianity, and began corresponding with Lewis before visiting him in England. Their friendship developed into a close relationship.

The couple had a civil marriage in 1956. A Christian marriage ceremony followed in 1957 at Oxford’s Church of England parish of Headington Quarry, conducted by Lewis’s friend and fellow clergyman Peter Bide. Their marriage lasted until Davidman’s death from cancer in 1960.

The relationship inspired Lewis’s later reflections on grief, published under the pseudonym N.W. Clerk in A Grief Observed. The book is often discussed alongside Shadowlands, a later stage and film adaptation based on their relationship.