C.S. Lewis would be more surprised than anyone if he knew how popular his writings would remain almost 50 years past his death. Lewis once remarked to a friend that he doubted anyone would bother to read him once he had passed on. So not only would Lewis be amazed to find that three of his seven book children’s series “Chronicles of Narnia” had been made into movies, but he would also be dumbfounded if he knew that his books were growing more popular by the year, not less so.
According to Michael Maudlin, an executive editor at HarperOne, not only are the “Narnia” books are still “huge backlist sellers that dominate everything else,” but “Mere Christianity” still sells about 150,000 copies a year, as does “The Screwtape Letters," a satirical correspondence between an uncle demon to his nephew demon about the ways and means of leading people astray.
The popularity of “The Screwtape Letters” has resulted in a play that is currently touring the United States, while “Mere Christianity” has been credited by many famous people as being central to their conversion to Christianity, including the Watergate felon Charles Colson and the National Institutes of Health Director and ‘genome’ scientist, Dr. Francis Collins. Lewis’ long-term impact as a noted academic has also been seen in a tertiary college of study recently being founded in his honour.
“I would say in the last 10 years, C. S. Lewis has sold more books than any other 10-year span since he started publishing,” Maudlin said. “He’s not only not declining, he is in his sweet spot.”
This popularity has certainly gained the attention of HarperOne, who recently released the “C.S. Lewis Bible” - a Bible annotated with various Lewis quotations from his books and letters. For example, in Matthew’s Gospel where Jesus challenges the outwardly but not sincerely religious, there is added a quote from “Mere Christianity”:
“How is it that people who are quite obviously eaten up with pride can say they believe in God and appear to themselves very religious?” They are “worshiping an imaginary God.”
Maudlin, who himself says he became a Christian through the influence of Lewis’ writings, admitted the author would probably have been very uncomfortable with all this attention.
“He would be uncomfortable if it were sold as a personality cult, or him as mentor or guru,” Maudlin said of Lewis, whose name looms larger than the word “Bible” on the book’s cover. “So we had to make it dignified.”