The Marion E. Wade Center

05/29/2026

Happy birthday to G.K. Chesterton, born this day in 1874!

Photo: G.K. Chesterton ca. 1907, Wade Center photo collection GKC / P-11.

05/13/2026

REMINDER: The Marion E. Wade Center and Wheaton College presents "C.S. Lewis: A Mentor by Mail," a book talk and signing by David C. Downing on Thursday, May 14, 2026, at 7:00 PM in Bakke Auditorium.

C.S. Lewis published 40 books in his lifetime, and yet he found time to answer hundreds of letters from complete strangers. He considered it a part of his Christian ministry to answer letters from his readers, including questions about theology, prayer, the Bible, and struggles with doubt. This lecture will include samples of his letters of advice and counsel. Join us afterward for a book signing of Dr. Downing's latest publication, C.S. Lewis: Letters on Living the Faith (2026).

David C. Downing (Ph.D. UCLA) was the Co-Director and Co-holder of the Marion E. Wade Chair in Christian Thought (with his wife Crystal Downing) of the Marion E. Wade Center from 2018 to 2024 at Wheaton College in Illinois.

Downing has written four scholarly books on C.S. Lewis: Planets in Peril (1992), a critical study of the Ransom trilogy; The Most Reluctant Convert (2002), an examination of Lewis's journey to faith; Into the Wardrobe (2005), an in-depth overview of the Narnia Chronicles; Into the Region of Awe (2005), a study of how Lewis's wide reading in Christian mysticism enhanced his own faith and enriched his imaginative writing.

Downing also provided a critical introduction and over 400 explanatory notes to the new edition of C.S. Lewis's The Pilgrim's Regress, originally published in 1933 and reissued by Eerdmans in the Wade Center Annotated Edition (2014). Downing has edited two best-selling collections of Lewis’s thoughts on reading and writing, The Reading Life (2019) and C.S. Lewis on Writing (and Writers) (2022), both published by HarperOne, and now C.S. Lewis: Letters on Living the Faith (2026).

Downing is also the author of Looking for the King: An Inklings Novel (2020), a historical novel in which two young Americans meet Lewis and Tolkien in Oxford in 1940. His blog may be found at cslewis.com. David and Crystal are now retired and live in Colorado.

This event is free and open to the public. For more information, contact the Wade Center.

Watch the livestream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNdU8kvshos

C.S. Lewis published 40 books in his lifetime, and yet he found time to answer hundreds of letters from complete strangers. He considered it a part of his Ch...

05/11/2026

Today marks the 100th anniversary of C.S. Lewis meeting J.R.R. Tolkien for the first time.

On Tuesday, May 11, 1926, C.S. Lewis encountered J.R.R. Tolkien at a meeting in Merton College, Oxford University, with other faculty members. Lewis’s impression of Tolkien was recorded in his diary on that date, now published in the book ALL MY ROAD BEFORE ME:

“He is a smooth, pale, fluent little chap … No harm in him: only needs a smack or so.”

Image: Merton College, Oxford. Photographer: Laura Stanifer

05/07/2026

REMINDER: The Marion E. Wade Center at Wheaton College presents "Magic, Science, Poetry: C.S. Lewis and the Battle for the Modern Soul," a lecture and book signing by Jason M. Baxter on Friday, May 8, 2026, at 1:30 PM.

This lecture will explore a mysterious scene from "That Hideous Strength," in light of Lewis's historical research on magic, poetry, and science in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries.

Jason M. Baxter (Ph.D., Notre Dame) is a speaker, college professor, and author of nine books, including Why Literature Still Matters, a new translation of Dante, and the best-selling The Medieval Mind of C.S. Lewis. On his Substack, Beauty Matters, he writes about the importance of old books for our digital age. He is currently the Executive Director of the Center for Beauty and Culture at Benedictine College.

This event is free and open to the public and will take place in Bakke Auditorium. For more information, contact the Wade Center.

"Magic, Science, Poetry: C.S. Lewis and the Battle for the Modern Soul" with Jason M. Baxter

05/06/2026

REMINDER: The Wade Center will have extended hours in celebration of Commencement and Alumni weekend. Feel free to stop by on Saturday, May 9, between 10am and 3pm. Congratulations to all graduates!

04/29/2026

The Wade Center will have extended hours in celebration of Commencement and Alumni weekend. Feel free to stop by on Saturday, May 9, between 10am and 3pm. Congratulations to all graduates!

04/22/2026

The friendship of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien has spawned many myths and inspired many lives. In this Wade Center Podcast episode, co-hosts Dr. Jim Beitler and Aaron Hill sit down with Kirk Manton, the producer or a forthcoming five-part documentary about the lives and friendship of Lewis and Tolkien titled, "The Forge of Friendship." Manton unpacks all the hard work that went into creating this amazing documentary that features everything from vivid reenactments of Lewis and Tolkien's lives to in-depth interviews with leading scholars and historians. Learn more about the documentary on Eastgate Creative's website.

3 likes. "Filming the Lives of Lewis and Tolkien w/ Kirk Manton"

04/15/2026

REMINDER: The Marion E. Wade Center, Old English Reading Group, English Department and Tolkien Society at Wheaton College present "Under a Northern Sky: Early Medieval Influences on Tolkien’s The Children of Húrin," a lecture by Benjamin Weber, Ph.D. on Thursday, April 16, 2026 at 4:00 PM.

The story of Túrin Turambar is perhaps the most haunting and tragic of the tales that lie behind the world of The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien himself remarked that the story was influenced by the Finnish Kalevala, but there are clear parallels with the Old Icelandic and Old English legends of Sigurd the Dragonslayer as well. This lecture will consider the ways in which Tolkien was inspired by different stories from what he calls the “nameless North," suggesting that the legends of Sigurd and the Volsungs can deepen our appreciation of the tale of Túrin and tell us something about Tolkien as a reader of early medieval literature.

Dr. Benjamin Weber is Associate Professor of English and Classical Languages (by courtesy) at Wheaton College, where he teaches numerous courses on medieval literature and its Classical antecedents. A specialist in Old English literature, he has written numerous interpretive essays on the Old English poetic corpus and is currently working on a book entitled Woven in Words: Poetics and Poetry Translation in Pre-Conquest England, under contract with Manchester University Press. He has a long-standing interest in Tolkien as a reader and commentator on medieval literature, expressed most obviously in prior lectures at the Wade Center on Tolkien’s translations of Beowulf and The Battle of Maldon.

This event is cosponsored by the Marion E. Wade Center, Old English Reading Group, English Department, and Tolkien Society at Wheaton College.

This event is free and open to the public and will take place in Marion E. Wade Center, Bakke Auditorium. For more information, contact the Wade Center.

Watch the livestream:

The Marion E. Wade Center, Old English Reading Group, English Department and Tolkien Society at Wheaton College present "Under a Northern Sky: Early Medieval...

04/08/2026

Today in Middle-earth: Frodo and Sam are honored at the Field of Cormallen.

“‘A great Shadow has departed,’ said Gandalf, and then he laughed and the sound was like music, or like water in a parched land; and as he listened the thought came to Sam that he had not heard laughter, the pure sound of merriment, for days upon days without count. It fell upon his ears like the echo of all the joys he had ever known. But he himself burst into tears. Then, as a sweet rain will pass down a wind of spring and the sun will shine out the clearer, his tears ceased, and his laughter welled up, and laughing he sprang from his bed.

‘How do I feel?’ he cried. ‘Well, I don’t know how to say it. I feel, I feel’ – he waved his arms in the air – ‘I feel like spring after winter, and sun on the leaves; and like trumpets and harps and all the songs I have ever heard!’”

- J.R.R. Tolkien, THE RETURN OF THE KING, Bk. 6, Ch. 4

04/05/2026

“On the third day the friends of Christ coming at daybreak to the place found the grave empty and the stone rolled away. In varying ways they realised the new wonder; but even they hardly realised that the world had died in the night. What they were looking at was the first day of a new creation, with a new heaven and a new earth; and in a semblance of the gardener God walked again in the garden, in the cool not of the evening but the dawn.”

- G.K. Chesterton, “The Strangest Story in the World” (Part 2, Ch. 3), THE EVERLASTING MAN

Image: “Early morning sunrise, rose photos in the garden,” Subhra Jyoti Paul, Unsplash