Books

~Original black cloth, printed label to spine. Mild chipping to spine label. March 1946 printing. Inscription to front free endpaper: 'To Beryl from the Carnalls October 1946'. With loose 2pp. letter, in the same hand, as follows: 'Magdalen College, Oxford. 12.10.1946. Dear Beryl, Many happy returns of - some days ago! I'm afraid that what with one thing and another, we've neglected your birthday very badly. We were so mixed up with my packing, dramatic entertainments and the search for better lodgings for Momma and Auntie, that the day slipped by. It's a bit calmer here, fortunately. / I hope you'll enjoy my tutor's correspondence with the devil. Maybe his inverted preaching is a bit trying. But it's very funny in parts, and, I suppose, instructive. Mr Lewis, by the way, said that he modelled Screwtape on himself. So you know what I have to deal with! / I hope Jackie's doing well at school. Remember me to her & Tom. Love from Geoffrey'. This is Geoffrey Carnall (1927-2015), literature scholar and peace campaigner. Carnall, the son of a pub landlord, gained a scholarship to study English Literature at Magdalen College, Oxford, in 1945. He was indeed taught by C. S. Lewis, who is said to have commented: Carnall is first-rate scholar. We call him "Knowledge"' (Obituary, Peace News, 2015). Carnall had registered as a conscientious objector in 1944, and was active in politics and peace activism at Oxford, founding a branch of the Socialist Christian Group. After his undergraduate studies, he served in India with the Friends Service Unit in India from 1948-50, during which time he turned from his original Anglicanism to Quakerism. Carnall was to remain both a Quaker and a dedicated peace activist for the rest of his life, as well as building a distinguished career at the University of Edinburgh as 'a scrupulous and enterprising scholar of literature from the 1780s to the 1850s' working as well on 'Anglo-Indian relations in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries' (University of Edinburgh, English and Scottish Literature, News, 22 Mar, 2018). The young Carnall's engagingly rueful assessment of Lewis' approach as tutor is recognisable from other accounts: Lewis was capable of reducing students 'to silence, or, worse, incoherence', says John Lawlor, while nevertheless concluding that 'I count it the greatest good fortune to have sorted out my intellectual equipment, once a week in Term-time for three years, under his vigilant and genial eye' (Light on C. S. Lewis, eds Gibb & Barfield, 1966, pp. 72, 77). Carnall himself was to become 'an eager, considerate and helpful teacher of undergraduates' (University of Edinburgh). Early printing and association copy of one of Lewis' most significant works. ~Robust packaging. Overseas orders trackable on request. Size: 160pp.