Customer Reviews

The Collected Works of C.S. Lewis

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For the cost of this book, I would have gladly paid the same price for "God in the Dock" alone. Yet, with this compilation, you get "God in the Dock" along with two other CS Lewis classics. The Pilgrim's Regress is a fictional story with an autobiographical twist. The main character, John, is in search for his island, something he has been drawn to his entire life, but never could quite put "his finger on it". Knowing CS Lewis' past, and how he went from atheist to Christian, and you'll see this book reflects his own personal struggles as he searched for the truth. Christian Reflections (14 essays) and God in the Dock (48 essays) are compilations of a plethora of essays CS Lewis has written on a large number of issues. From the justifiability of war (CS Lewis wrote a large number of essays during the World War II period), to answers to atheistic questions, ethics, prayer, common theological questions and church music, Clive Staples Lewis leaves no stone unturned. The Pilgrims Regress is a perfect introduction to CS Lewis, and will get you geared up for the theologically heavier fare that you will get with the other two books. Reading the two other essay driven books is easy, once you get accustomed to CS Lewis' mannerisms, and the essays vary anywhere from 4 to 5 pages in length, to 20 or more. The prose is rich, and CS Lewis is one of the greatest Christian authors of all time, and after reading this compliation, you'll know why.

How should I describe C S Lewis's work? Influenced by Chesterton, MacDonald, and a large amount of Medieval writers; and influencing authors such as Borges, Tolkien, and a whole generation of writers, C S Lewis ranks as the foremost Christian apologist of this century, and one of the greatest of all times. Lecturer and professor at Cambridge and Oxford, he was ranked as a superb scholar, specialized in the Medieval literature area; was a famous children literature writer; but it is in his apologetical essays that he's at his best. Mr. Lewis, mastering his Thomas Aquinas and Augustin, proposes a witty and light approach to the discusion of theology. It is like an erudite Chesterton, an easy Kierkegaard, or a short Dostoievski. Even if you do not sympathize with morals or faith, Lewis will pull out a smile of your face, and make you think for a while. I recomend this book specialy for Christians who want to understand and non-Christians who want to believe. To both of them, take the risk, and read this book.

Personally, I don't know how Inspirational Press stays in business! They have all of these high-quality books for bargain-barrel prices. And the printing aspects are high-quality-the binding holds up to my vicious attacks with the pen and constant pondering and page-turning and re-page-turning!

This is a "tree-fer," containing some of C. S. Lewis's best work.

"Pilgrim's Recess" is Lewis's proto-work or Q-document, where he give in allegorical form a thumbnail of his thought, or rather his Thought, since he is consistant ans unified in this thinking.

"Christian Reflections" and "God in the Dock" are two books with one theme, that is defense of the faith and answering questions to and about the faith. Lewis is a mind awake and does not
shirk from sharp and jagged questions, and he gives substantive and serious answers.

If you have thought about buying even one of these books, get this trilogy since you will always want more of Lewis!

As other reviewers have already commented on the incredible bargain and high quality of this Lewis omnibus, I wish to focus specifically on "The Pilgrim's Regress."

Like most of Lewis's works, "The Pilgrim's Regress" merits regular re-reading. Originally published for an academic audience, the book is an allegory that reflects Lewis's inner journey away from the Christianized culture of his childhood to "popular realism," and from there to Philosophical Idealism, to Pantheism, to Theism, and finally to an adult-understanding of Christianity (see Afterword to the Third Edition). Thus the subtitle of the book runs "An Allegorical Apology for Christianity, Reason and Romanticism."

"The Pilgrim's Regress" might be difficult to understand for someone without prior knowledge of the philosophical developments of the past centuries, since it lies in the nature of allegory to provide pictures to concepts generally familiar to the reader and not explain the concepts didactically to an ignorant reader. But, given some extra effort, even the ignorant reader can glean many great insights from the book.

To the philosophically educated reader it should be said that in "The Pilgrim's Regress" you have a book quite unique in the twentieth century. Since Allegory Proper has not been the most popular genre of late (to say the least), and since a Christian who is equally enthusiastic about Reason and Romanticism is also rather uncommon, the book is probably unlike anything you have ever read.

If you have not already done so, it is high time to buy the book and get enriched by its insightful imagery!

- Jacob Schriftman, Author of The C. S. Lewis Book on the Bible: What the Greatest Christian Writer Thought About the Greatest Book

The first part, a Pilgrim's Regress is a critique on many modern philosophies. Overall it's quite well written, with only a few parts that are so transparent as to leave your intelligence feeling a tad insulted. The other two thirds of this tome is a collection of Lewis' writings from several sources, correspondence, essays, transcripts from radio talks etc. A few of them are dry, but many of them are excellent. It's remarkable that the very same issues which we in the Catholic Church today are facing, are being discussed by this Anglican a century earlier. Women's ordination, the secularization of Christmas, etc. Why are we so incapable of learning from the mistakes of others?! A few quotes worth sharing:

from "Priestesses in the Church:
"The Church claims to be the bearer of a revelatio. If that claim is false then we want not to make priestesses but to abolish priests. if it is true, then we should expct to find in the Church an element which unbelievers will call irrational and which believers will call suprarational...If we retain only what can be justified by standards of prudence and convenience at the bar of enlightened common sense, then we exchange revelation for that old wraith Natural Religion."

from "Xmas and Christmas(an allegorical narrative, hence the Crissmass, and Exmas)"
"But I myself conversed with a priest in one of these temples and asked him why they kept Crissmas on the same day as Exmas; for it appeared to me inconvenient, But the priest replied, It is not lawful O stranger, for us to change the date of Crissmas, but would that Zeus would put it into the minds of the Niatriibians to keep Exmas at some other time or not to keep it at all. "
(which beautiful backs up a point I had made in a post a few weeks ago on why we should not move Christmas)

Apparently this book is now thought of as out of print or hard to find, but I'm sure other editions of it's three component works: The Pilgrim's Regress, Christian Reflections and God in the Dock have come out.

The previous reviewers were "spot on" - this is an excellent compendium of three of Lewis's best works. Personally, the essays in "Dock" and "Reflections" have been most memorable over the last 20 years, and I find myself frequently remembering concepts, illustrations, and analogies from them.

The high point of this volume is the essay in "Reflections" entitled "Christianity: Reality or Substitute." The essay deals compellingly with the topic of faith, boldly asserting a perspective that will appeal to atheists and agnostics, while challenging Christians who think faith has nothing to do with the life of the mind, rationality, and the ability to approach God with the critical questions.

An honest, earnest searcher for the best in Christian thinking need look no further.

The pilgrims regress is one of my favorite books. I've gone through it several times, always learning more of what the brilliant writer C. S. Lewis was trying to explain of the nature of people and of philosophy. Haven't finished the other books included but the more i read, the more i enjoy Lewis' writing.

Really enough cannot be said about this book. It is a compilation of three other 'works', each of which contain numerous topics, or (one could say) 'works' in themselves. Lewis writes on a myriad of subjects, ranging from extremely controversial topics such as captial punishment, to perhaps less considered topics, like Christianity and Culture. Lewis has a remarkable way of making crucial points, even in topics you would not normally consider to be very important.

The writing is Lewis, so, of course, it is chalk full of wit, metaphor, and complex ideas. Many of the presented works are not overly long (they were written to be read as lectures), and so Lewis wastes no time in getting to his point. This is important to the reader who wants to get to the points Lewis is making - the meat of his arguments - as quickly as possible. Since the book is over 500 pages, reticence is one of Lewis's virtues (in this book). Another thing I found interesting was that, in a section of the book (towards the end especially, but also peppered throughout), there are rebutals and replies from Lewis's critics. This was a unique way in which to examine how Lewis responded, and it also showed Lewis, like all apologists, had his share of dissenters.

Personally, I like Lewis. I like his writing style, and, as far as I 'know' him, I like him as a man. Prior to reading this I had read his 'Signature Classics', which can be looked up on amazon, if one desires to know its composition. I found very little overlap in thought; though there invitably must be SOME, if we are supposing Lewis really believes in the ideas he argues.

If you are interested in diving into some of Lewis's deepest, most challenging (and therefore most rewarding) thoughts, I think you would like this book.

A good book that puts into allegorical form how we perceive our life here on earth from a perspective that is not God's. A good way of putting our perspectives into a form that we can easily recognize and hopefully move towards God's perspective.

The book I ordered was sent right away and I received it very quickly, even with media mail. The item was described accurately and I am extremely pleased.