was a quintessential educator who would want his lessons about communication to endure. On describing the role of a good teacher, Lewis wrote, “The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles, but to irrigate deserts.”23 This book is written to irrigate your understanding of communication. By better understanding Lewis’s principles of communication, each of us can learn strategies to enhance our own ability to write, speak, and relate to others so that we, too, can become master communicators.
Steven Beebe
San Marcos, Texas
←xxii | xxiii→
Notes
2. For example, see: Steven A. Beebe and Susan J. Beebe, Public Speaking: An Audience-Centered Approach 11th edition (Boston: Pearson, 2021); Steven A. Beebe, Susan J. Beebe and Diana K. Ivy, Communication: Principles for a Lifetime 7th edition (Boston: Pearson, 2019); Steven A. Beebe and John T. Masterson, Communicating in Small Groups: Principles and Practices 12th edition (Boston: Pearson, 2021); Steven A. Beebe, Susan J. Beebe and Mark V. Redmond, Interpersonal Communication: Relating to Others 9th edition (Boston: Pearson, 2020); Steven A. Beebe and Timothy P. Mottet, Business and Professional Communication: Principles and Skills for Leadership 3rd edition (Boston: Pearson, 2016); Steven A. Beebe, Timothy P. Mottet and K. David Roach, Training and Development: Communicating for Success 2nd edition (Boston: Pearson, 2014).
3. See: Kathryn Lindskoog, “A. N. Wilson Errata,” Into the Wardrobe: A C. S. Lewis Website. http://cslewis.drzeus.net/papers/wilson-errata/ Accessed April 21, 2017; Arend Smilde, “Sweetly Poisonous in a Welcome Way: Reflections on a Definitive Biography,” Lewisana.NIL http://lewisiana.nl/definitivebiography/ Accessed April 21, 2017; Bruce L. Edwards, “A Review of A. N. Wilson’s C. S. Lewis: A Biography,” http://personal.bgsu.edu/~edwards/Wilson.html Accessed April 21, 2017.
4. See: Abigail Santamaria, Joy: Poet, Seeker, and the Woman Who Captivated C. S. Lewis (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2015).
5. “The Lefay Manuscript” fragment is published in: Walter Hooper, Past Watchful Dragons: A Guide to C. S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia (Glasgow: Collins, 1979).
6. See: Steven A. Beebe, “C. S. Lewis on Language and Meaning: Manuscript Fragment Identified,” VII: An Anglo-American Literary Review 27 (2010): 7–24.
7. Charlie W. Starr, “Villainous Handwriting”: A Chronological Study of C. S. Lewis’s Script, VII: Journal of the Marion E. Wade Center 33 (2016): 73–94.
8. For an excellent overview of Lewis’s handwriting and how it has evolved over the years and how the dates of a Lewis manuscript can be determined based on his handwriting see: Starr, “Villainous Handwriting.”
9. Walter Hooper, Past Watchful Dragons: A Guide to C. S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia (Glasgow: Collins, 1979), 56.
10. See: Elizabeth Anscome, “C. S. Lewis’s Rewrite of Chapter III of Miracles,” M. Roger White, Judith Wolfe and Brendan N. Wolfe ed. “C. S. Lewis & His Circle: Essays and Memoirs from the Oxford C. S. Lewis Society (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 15–23.
11. Diana. P. Glyer, The Company They Keep: C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien as Writers in Community (Kent: Kent State University Press, 2007).
12. Glyer, The Company They Keep.
13. Colin Duriez, The Oxford Inklings: Lewis, Tolkien and Their Circle (Oxford: Lion Hudson, 2015), 78.
14. Glyer, The Company They Keep, 146.
15. J. R. R. Tolkien, Letter to Christopher Tolkien, November 29, 1944, Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien, ed. Humphrey Carpenter with Christopher Tolkien (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1981), 105.
16. Tolkien, Letters, 105.
←xxiii | xxiv→
17. C. S. Lewis, Letter to Sister Penelope, January 12, 1950, The Collected Letters of C. S. Lewis, Vol. III: Narnia, Cambridge, and Joy 1950–1963, ed. Walter Hooper (San Francisco: Harper San Francisco, 2007), 6.
18. Lewis, Collected Letters III, 6.
19. C. S. Lewis, Fern Seed and Elephants: And Other Essays on Christianity, ed. Walter Hooper (London: Collins, Fontana, 1975), 58.
20. Walter Hooper, Past Watchful Dragons, 56.
21. Beebe, “C. S. Lewis on Language and Meaning; C. S. Lewis,” Language and Human Nature, VII: An Anglo-American Literary Review 27 (2010), 15.
22. C. S. Lewis, Letter to Albert Lewis, July 29, 1927, Collected Letters, Vol. I: Family Letters 1905–1931, ed. Walter Hooper (San Francisco: Harper San Francisco, 2004), 713.
23. C. S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man: Reflections on Education with Special Reference to the Teaching of English in the Upper Forms of Schools (London: Oxford University Press, 1943), 9.
←xxiv | xxv→
This book has been an important part of my life for more than a decade. I have many people to thank for their encouragement, ideas, support, and suggestions.
Several people spent many hours reading the manuscript and offered detailed comments, affirmations, corrections, and suggestions. Although all errors are mine, I benefited from the generous offering of wise counsel from many people: Diana Ivy (the first person I trusted to read this book offered unswerving encouragement), Joel Heck (whose knowledge of Lewis was invaluable), Jerry Root (a master communicator and Lewis scholar), Michael Ward (whose knowledge of Lewis is unbounded), Andrew Lazo (who has a considerable gift with words),
