All My Road Before Me: An Intimate Portrait of Young C.S. Lewis
Like his contemporary J.R.R. Tolkien, the young C.S. Lewis fought in the trenches during the first World War. While Tolkien’s war experiences would later provide inspiration for his famous works of literature, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, young Lewis was also finding a way to survive the horrors of war. He had made a friend of a fellow soldier and the two made a pact: if one of them should die, the other would take care of his family.
Tragically, Lewis’ friend did die in the war, leaving young Clive to return home to England, disenchanted, bewildered, and in need of a fresh start.
True to his promise, Lewis sought out the mother of his fallen friend, Jane King Moore. The two began a deep friendship and Lewis moved in to the Moore household before returning to Oxford. At twenty-three, Lewis was a staunch atheist and found himself struggling to re-build his life after the horror and destruction the war had wrought on England. Mrs. Moore suggested to the fraught Lewis that he should keep a diary of his thoughts.
The results of this suggestion are All My Road Before Me, the published diary of the young C.S. Lewis before he became the renowned author, scholar, and Christian apologist he is known as today. This book chronicles five years of the spiritual and intellectual development of one of the most influential writers of his time.
This edition was reprinted by HarperOne in February of this year (2017). It is available in hardcover, softcover, and as an e-book.
