Branches to Heaven

One of the twentieth century's most widely read writers and its most influential Christian apologist, C. S. Lewis has nevertheless eluded the understanding of the numerous scholars who have approached him only as a religious thinker and man of letters. A new book by a leading Lewis authority explores the full range of his manifold genius and finds for the first time the surprising secret of Lewis's enduring literary and spiritual achievement.

It will astonish Lewis's admirers and critics alike to learn that he was far from the settled convert he appeared to be. Yet this very unsettledness, which Lewis himself found alarming, was the source of the appealing tension in his work and of his unrelenting commitment to his apologetic vocation. It was in the service of this vocation that he exercised his overarching rhetorical geniusÔÇöa dazzling adroitness at suiting word, voice, and argument to a particular purposeÔÇöalways militant, compelling, and persuasive.

As Professor Como explores Lewis's hitherto uncharted inner landscapeÔÇöthe core of both his spiritual insight and his intellectual greatnessÔÇöthere emerges a more complex and integrated figure than we have known before.