NEW Book BY C.S. Lewis Coming Out Soon!

Update 8/31/2013: I received a reply from Walter Hooper where I requested additional information about this new forthcoming book. That information is only at my larger (umbrella) site; EssentialCSLewis.com; so, CLICK HERE to read it. HOWEVER, some details are only mentioned below. 

I know what you’re thinking, “C.S. Lewis took the time to come back from the dead, 50 years after his passing to give his fans a new book.” Unfortunately that isn’t true. For if it were then we wouldn’t have to wait about a week or two AFTER the anniversary of his death to get a copy of Image and Imagination.

More seriously, there is indeed and new book by C.S. Lewis that is edited by Walter Hooper coming out. What will be in this new book, you ask? At the time of this writing the details are incomplete, but here is what we do know…

Image and Imagination is a collection of forty book reviews (most not) previously reprinted, along with four essays that have been out-of-print from other collections, plus “Image and Imagination,” another essay that was never published in Lewis’s lifetime. The book is being published by Cambridge University Press and is due out in the U.S. and U.K. on November 30th according to Amazon. The following description is partly available form Amazon, but some is only found at the Cambridge University Press page about the book.

This selection from the writings of C. S. Lewis gathers together forty book reviews, never before reprinted, as well as four major essays which have been unavailable for many decades. A fifth essay, ‘Image and Imagination’, is published for the first time. Taken together, the collection presents some of Lewis’s finest literary criticism and religious exposition. The essays and reviews substantiate his reputation as an eloquent and authoritative critic across a wide range of literature, and as a keen judge of contemporary scholarship, while his reviews of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings will be of additional interest to scholars and students of fantasy.

The first new collection of writings of C. S. Lewis for several decades
Includes essays and reviews, many of them of very high quality, that have never been reprinted since first publication, scattered in various journals and magazines, along with some material never published before
Includes remarkably prescient reviews of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings

If you know the secret to navigating some sites like this then you will also get a hint of the specifics (actually just the major sections, or how the book is divided). The site reveals the following:

Table of Contents

Part I. Reflections on Literature
Part II. The Inklings
Part of The Lord of the Rings)
Part of The Lord of the Rings)
The Return of the King (being the Third Part of The Lord of the Rings)
Part of The Lord of the Rings)
Part III. Reflections on Christianity
Part IV. Classical Literature
Part V. Medieval and Renaissance Literature
Part VI. Milton and Later English Literature.

Going back to reading the description of this book you see there is suppose to be forty book reviews. Wouldn’t it be nice if we knew what they were? Fortunately there is a great resource to find out this information (reprinted below). That resource was first known as C.S. Lewis: A Companion & Guide, but was republished as C. S. Lewis: A Complete Guide to His Life & Works; from what I can tell, however, both books are out of print, but used copies are available at a decent price. In the copy I own the list of books reviews begin on page 852

For now, that is all the details I can come up with about what could be the last book of unpublished material by C.S. Lewis.

BOOK REVIEWS BY C.S. LEWIS (as listed in Hooper’s book):

1. Evelyn Waugh, Rossetti: His Life and Works. The Oxford Magazine, XLVII, (25
October 1928), pp. 66, 69. (Unsigned).

2. Hugh Kingsmill, Matthew Arnold. The Oxford Magazine, XLVII (15 November
1928), p. 177.

3. W.P.Ker, Form and Style in Poetry. Edited by R.W.Chambers. The Oxford
Magazine, XLVII (6 December 1928), pp. 283-4.

4. H.W.Garrod, Collins. The Oxford Magazine, XLVII (16 May 1929), p. 633.

5. Ruth Mohl, The Three Estates in Medieval and Renaissance Literature. Medium
Aevum, III (February 1934), pp. 68-70.

6. E.K.Chambers, Sir Thomas Wyatt and Some Collected Studies. Medium Aevum,
III (October 1934), pp. 237-40.

7. T.R.Henn, Longinus and English Criticism. The Oxford Magazine, LIII (6
December 1934), p. 264.

8. Dorothy M. Hoare, The Works of Morris and of Yeats in Relation to Early Saga
Literature. ‘The Sagas and Modern Life: Morris, Mr. Yeats and the Originals,’ The
Times Literary Supplement (29 May 1937), p. 409. (Unsigned).

9. J.R.R.Tolkien, The Hobbit: or There and Back Again. ‘A World for Children,’
The Times Literary Supplement (2 October 1937), p. 714. (Unsigned). Reprinted as
‘The Hobbit’ in Of This and Other Worlds, Essay Collection.

10. J.R.R.Tolkien, The Hobbit: or There and Back Again. ‘Professor Tolkien’s
Hobbit,’ The Times (8 October 1937), p. 20. (Unsigned).

11. Charles Williams, Taliessin Through Logres. ‘A Sacred Poem,’ Theology,
XXXVIII (April 1939), pp. 268-76.

12. A.C.Bouquet (Editor), A Lectionary of Christian Prose from the Second Century
to the Twentieth Century. Theology, XXXIX (December 1939), pp. 467-8.

13. D. de Rougemont, Passion and Society (Translated by M. Belgion); Claude
Chavasse, The Bride of Christ. Theology, XL (June 1940), pp. 459-61.

14. Lord David Cecil (Editor), The Oxford Book of Christian Verse. The Review of
English Studies, XVII (January 1941), pp. 95-102.

15. Helen M. Barrett, Boethius: Some Aspects of His Times and Work. Medium
Aevum, X (February 1941), pp. 29-34.

16. Logan Pearsall Smith, Milton and His Modern Critics. The Cambridge Review
(21 February 1941), p. 280.

17. Dorothy L. Sayers, The Mind of the Maker. Theology, XLIII (October 1941), pp.
248-49.

18. Andreas Capellanus, The Art of Courtly Love (with introduction, translation, and
notes by John Jay Parry). The Review of English Studies, XIX (January 1943), pp. 77-
79.

19. J.W.H.Atkins, English Literary Criticism: The Medieval Phase. The Oxford
Magazine, LXII (10 February 1944), p. 158.

20. Owen Barfield, Romanticism Comes of Age. ‘“Who gaf me Drink?”,’ The
Spectator, CLXXIV (9 March 1945), p. 224.

21. Charles Williams, Taliessin Through Logres. The Oxford Magazine, LXIV (14
March 1946), pp. 248-50.

22. Douglas Bush, ‘Paradise Lost’ in Our Time: Some Comments. The Oxford
Magazine, LXV (13 February 1947), pp. 215-17.

23. Sir Thomas Malory, The Works of Sir Thomas Malory (Edited by E. Vinaver).
‘The Morte Darthur,’ The Times Literary Supplement (7 June 1947), pp. 273-74.
(Unsigned). Reprinted in Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Literature.

24. G.A.L. Burgeon (= Owen Barfield), This Ever Diverse Pair. ‘Life Partners,’ Time
and Tide, XXXI (25 March 1950), p. 286.

25. Howard Rollin Patch, The Other World, According to Descriptions in Medieval
Literature. Medium Aevum, XX (1951), pp. 93-94.

26. Alan M.F.Gunn, The Mirror of Love: A Reinterpretation of ‘The Romance of the
Rose’. Medium Aevum, XXII, No. 1 (1953), pp. 27-31.

27. J.R.R.Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring (being the First Part of The Lord of the
Rings). ‘The Gods Return to Earth,’ Time and Tide, XXXV (14 August 1954), pp.
1082-83. Reprinted with G28 as ‘Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings’ in Of This and
Other Worlds, Essay Collection.

28. J.R.R.Tolkien, The Two Towers (being the Second Part of The Lord of the Rings);
The Return of the King (being the Third Part of The Lord of the Rings). ‘The
Dethronement of Power,’ Time and Tide, XXXVI (22 October 1955), pp. 1373-74.
Reprinted with G27 as ‘Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings’ in Of This and Other
Worlds, Essay Collection.

29. W. Schwarz, Principles and Problems of Biblical Translation. Medium Aevum,
XXVI, No. 2 (1957), pp. 115-17.

30. R.S.Loomis (Editor), Arthurian Literature in the Middle Ages: A Collaborative
Study, ‘Arthuriana,’ The Cambridge Review, LXXXI (13 February 1960), pp. 355,
357.

31. M. Pauline Parker, The Allegory of the ‘Faerie Queen.’ The Cambridge Review,
LXXXI (11 June 1960), pp. 643, 645.

32. John Vyvyan, Shakespeare and the Rose of Love. The Listener, LXIV (7 July
1960), p. 30.

33. Robert Ellrodt, Neoplatonism in the Poetry of Spenser. Etudes Anglaises, XIV
(April-June 1961), pp. 107-16. Reprinted as ‘Neoplatonism in the Poetry of Spenser’
in Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Literature.

34. George Steiner, The Death of Tragedy. ‘Tragic Ends,’ Encounter, XVIII
(February 1962), pp. 97-101.

35. David Loth, The Erotic in Literature. ‘Eros on the Loose,’ The Observer
(Weekend Review), No. 8905 (4 March 1962), p. 30.

36. Sir John Hawkins, The Life of Samuel Johnson (Edited by B.H.Davis). ‘Boswell’s
Bugbear,’ Sunday Telegraph, No. 61 (1 April 1962), p. 8.

37. Homer, The Odyssey (Translated by Robert Fitzgerald). ‘Odysseus Sails Again,’
Sunday Telegraph, No. 84 (9 September 1962), p. 6.

38. John Jones, On Aristotle and Greek Tragedy. ‘Ajax and Others,’ Sunday
Telegraph, No. 98 (16 December 1962), p. 6.

39. Harold Bloom, The Visionary Company: A Reading of English Romantic Poetry.
‘Poetry and Exegesis,’ Encounter, XX (June 1963), pp. 74-76.

40. Dorothy L. Sayers, The Poetry of Search and the Poetry of Statement. ‘Rhyme 
and Reason,’ Sunday Telegraph, No. 148 (1 December 1963), p. 18.