and
Second Place in the 2019 Religion News Association Awards for Excellence in Nonfiction Religion Book
C. S. Lewis, long renowned for his children's books as well as his Christian apologetics, has been the subject of wide interest since he first stepped-up to the BBC's microphone during the Second World War. Until now, however, the reasons why this medievalist began writing books for a popular audience, and why these books have continued to be so popular, had not been fully explored. In fact Lewis, who once described himself as by nature an 'extreme anarchist', was a critical controversialist in his time-and not to everyone's liking. Yet, somehow, Lewis's books directed at children and middlebrow Christians have continued to resonate in the decades since his death in 1963. Stephanie L. Derrick considers why this is the case, and why it is more true in America than in Lewis's home-country of Britain.
The story of C. S. Lewis's fame is one that takes us from his childhood in Edwardian Belfast, to the height of international conflict during the 1940s, to the rapid expansion of the paperback market, and on to readers' experiences in the 1980s and 1990s, and, finally, to London in November 2013, where Lewis was honoured with a stone in Poet's Corner in Westminster Abbey. Derrick shows that, in fact, the author himself was only one actor among many shaping a multi-faceted image. The Fame of C. S. Lewis is the most comprehensive account of Lewis's popularity to date, drawing on a wealth of fresh material and with much to interest scholars and C. S. Lewis admirers alike.
Available to order:
Amazon & Oxford University Press
Symposium Discussion: https://syndicate.network/symposia/theology/the-fame-of-c-s-lewis/
“In Conversation: An OUP Podcast,” New Books Network, October 11, 2018: https://newbooksnetwork.com/stephanie-l-derrick-the-fame-of-c-s-lewis-a-controversialists-reception-in-britain-and-america-oxford-up-2018/
Chasing Paper is an important new collection of essays written by senior publishers from around the world who have spent their careers in Christian publishing. Here they discuss the dramatic changes witnessed by the Christian publishing industry over the last fifty years, how they and their companies responded to those changes, and what the future may hold for the Christian publishing industry, authors, and readers everywhere. Find herein a rare glimpse behind the scenes into how some of the gate keepers of Christian culture have navigated quickly shifting cultural and professional realities.
Available to order:
Amazon & Wipf & Stock
Reading Religion Review: https://readingreligion.org/9781532677588/
Publishing Research Quarterly Review: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12109-022-09902-4
Other Publications
Book Chapter
“One Pilgrims’ Regress: British and American Evangelicals’ Disparate Responses to C. S. Lewis,” The Gospel in the Past: Essays on the Historiography of the Evangelical Movement, David W. Bebbington, ed., Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2025.
https://www.baylorpress.com/9781481321396/the-gospel-in-the-past/
Book Chapter
“Women’s Creative Labor Contribution to the American Christian Publishing Industry,” The Edinburgh Companion to Women in Publishing, 1900-2000, eds. Nicola Wilson, Claire Battershill, Sophie Heywood, Daniela la Penna, Helen Southworth, Alice Staveley, Elizabeth Willson Gordon, Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh Press, 2024.
Religion in Los Angeles: Religious Activism, Innovation, and Diversity in the Global City, by Richard W. Flory and Diane H. Winston, Reading Religion, January 19, 2023.
https://readingreligion.org/9780367439347/religion-in-los-angeles/
Book Review
“Is C. S. Lewis the Author of The Strand Magazine’s ‘Cricketer’s Progress?’ Or: a Pretense for Discussing the Author’s Use of Pseudonyms,” Journal of Inkling Studies (November 2019) 9:2: 181-191.
“Boris Artzybasheff, C. S. Lewis, and Lost Art,” OUPblog, July 21, 2019.
https://blog.oup.com/2019/07/boris-artzybasheff-c-s-lewis-and-lost-art/
Blog Post
Book Review
Review of Online Catholic Communities: Community, Authority, and Religious Individualism, by Marta Kołodziejska, Reading Religion, July 17, 2019.
“The Transatlantic Reception of The Chronicles of Narnia and C. S. Lewis as a Children’s Book Author in the 1950s and 1960s, Compared”Children's Literature Association Quarterly (Spring 2019) 44.1: 27-43.
Article
Article
“‘Dear Ladies’: A New C. S. Lewis Letter and the Stresses of Fame,” World, Saturday Series (December 1, 2018)
“Christmas and Cricket: Rediscovering Two Lost C. S. Lewis Articles After 70 Years” Christianity Today - December 15, 2017
Article
Keith Hanley and Brian Maidment, "Persistent Ruskin: Studies in Influence, Assimilation, and Effect" (Aldershot, Hants, England: Burlington, VT: Ashgate Pub. Company, 2012). "SHARP News," Vol. 23, No. 3 (Summer 2014): 8.
Book Review
Book Review
Richard J. Smith, "The I Ching: A Biography" (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2012). "Relegere: Studies in Religion and Reception," Vol. 3, No. 1 (2013).