Joy Gresham
Encyclopedia
Joy Davidman was an American poet
and writer
, and a radical communist and atheist until her conversion to Christianity
in the late 1940s. Her first husband was the writer William Lindsay Gresham
. They had two children together: David and Douglas
. Her second marriage was to C. S. Lewis
.
who read H. G. Wells
's The Outline of History
at the age of eight and entered Hunter College
in New York City at the age of fourteen. Her poems were published in Poetry
by the age of 21. For her collection Letters to a Comrade she won the Yale Series of Younger Poets Competition
; in 1938 she shared with Robert Frost
the Russell Loines Memorial Prize. Much of her work during this period reflected her politics; she was a member of the American Communist Party.
Davidman first met writer C. S. Lewis
, on a trip to England in 1952 after a two-year correspondence. Her first marriage had been damaged by a confluence of circumstances that included her husband's alcoholism and infidelity. After divorcing Gresham, Davidman moved to England with her two sons, David and Douglas Gresham. Lewis at first regarded her as an agreeable intellectual companion and personal friend, and it was at least overtly on this level that he agreed to enter into a civil marriage contract with her so that she could continue to live in the UK.
Davidman was then diagnosed with incurable bone cancer, and the relationship developed to the point that they sought a Christian marriage. Since she was divorced, this was not straightforward in the Church of England
at the time, but a friend and Anglican priest, Rev. Peter Bide, performed the ceremony at Davidman's hospital bed on 21 March 1956. The marriage did not win wide approval among Lewis's social circle, and some of his friends and colleagues avoided the new couple. Joy encouraged Lewis, known to his intimates as "Jack", to write and inspired his work.
She enjoyed a brief remission, but the cancer returned in a terminal form. Davidman died on 13 July 1960, aged 45. As a widower, Lewis wrote A Grief Observed
to describe his feelings and pay tribute to his wife.
, a dramatized version of her life with Lewis by William Nicholson
, has twice been filmed. In 1985, a television version was made by the BBC
starring Joss Ackland
as Lewis and Claire Bloom
as Gresham. A cinema film version
was released in 1993, with Anthony Hopkins
as Jack (C. S. Lewis) and Debra Winger
as Joy. Both are available on DVD.
Nicholson's work, in part drawing on Douglas Gresham
's book, Lenten Lands: My Childhood with Joy Davidman and CS Lewis (Macmillan USA 1988, HarperCollins, 1989), was also performed in London as an award-winning stage play
in 1989–90. The play transferred successfully to Broadway in 1990–91, and was revived in London in 2007.
This epitaph by C. S. Lewis
was originally written on the death of Charles Williams
; he later adapted it to place on his wife's grave.
Poet
A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
and writer
Writer
A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....
, and a radical communist and atheist until her conversion to Christianity
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
in the late 1940s. Her first husband was the writer William Lindsay Gresham
William Lindsay Gresham
William Lindsay Gresham was an American novelist and non-fiction author particularly regarded among readers of noir. His best-known work is Nightmare Alley , which was adapted into a 1947 film starring Tyrone Power.- Biography :Gresham was born in Baltimore, Maryland...
. They had two children together: David and Douglas
Douglas Gresham
Douglas Gresham is an American-born British biographer and film producer, resident in Malta, and one of the two stepsons of C. S. Lewis.- Personal life :...
. Her second marriage was to C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
Clive Staples Lewis , commonly referred to as C. S. Lewis and known to his friends and family as "Jack", was a novelist, academic, medievalist, literary critic, essayist, lay theologian and Christian apologist from Belfast, Ireland...
.
Life
Helen Joy Davidman was born into a Jewish family in New York City, of Polish and Ukrainian background. She was a child prodigyChild prodigy
A child prodigy is someone who, at an early age, masters one or more skills far beyond his or her level of maturity. One criterion for classifying prodigies is: a prodigy is a child, typically younger than 18 years old, who is performing at the level of a highly trained adult in a very demanding...
who read H. G. Wells
H. G. Wells
Herbert George Wells was an English author, now best known for his work in the science fiction genre. He was also a prolific writer in many other genres, including contemporary novels, history, politics and social commentary, even writing text books and rules for war games...
's The Outline of History
The Outline of History
The Outline of History, subtitled either "The Whole Story of Man" or "Being a Plain History of Life and Mankind", is a book by H. G. Wells published in 1919...
at the age of eight and entered Hunter College
Hunter College
Hunter College, established in 1870, is a public university and one of the constituent colleges of the City University of New York, located on Manhattan's Upper East Side. Hunter grants undergraduate, graduate, and post-graduate degrees in more than one hundred fields of study, and is recognized...
in New York City at the age of fourteen. Her poems were published in Poetry
Poetry (magazine)
Poetry , published in Chicago, Illinois since 1912, is one of the leading monthly poetry journals in the English-speaking world. Published by the Poetry Foundation and currently edited by Christian Wiman, the magazine has a circulation of 30,000 and prints 300 poems per year out of approximately...
by the age of 21. For her collection Letters to a Comrade she won the Yale Series of Younger Poets Competition
Yale Series of Younger Poets Competition
The Yale Series of Younger Poets Competition is an annual event of Yale University Press aiming to publish the first collection of a promising American poet...
; in 1938 she shared with Robert Frost
Robert Frost
Robert Lee Frost was an American poet. He is highly regarded for his realistic depictions of rural life and his command of American colloquial speech. His work frequently employed settings from rural life in New England in the early twentieth century, using them to examine complex social and...
the Russell Loines Memorial Prize. Much of her work during this period reflected her politics; she was a member of the American Communist Party.
Davidman first met writer C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
Clive Staples Lewis , commonly referred to as C. S. Lewis and known to his friends and family as "Jack", was a novelist, academic, medievalist, literary critic, essayist, lay theologian and Christian apologist from Belfast, Ireland...
, on a trip to England in 1952 after a two-year correspondence. Her first marriage had been damaged by a confluence of circumstances that included her husband's alcoholism and infidelity. After divorcing Gresham, Davidman moved to England with her two sons, David and Douglas Gresham. Lewis at first regarded her as an agreeable intellectual companion and personal friend, and it was at least overtly on this level that he agreed to enter into a civil marriage contract with her so that she could continue to live in the UK.
Davidman was then diagnosed with incurable bone cancer, and the relationship developed to the point that they sought a Christian marriage. Since she was divorced, this was not straightforward in the Church of England
Church of England
The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...
at the time, but a friend and Anglican priest, Rev. Peter Bide, performed the ceremony at Davidman's hospital bed on 21 March 1956. The marriage did not win wide approval among Lewis's social circle, and some of his friends and colleagues avoided the new couple. Joy encouraged Lewis, known to his intimates as "Jack", to write and inspired his work.
She enjoyed a brief remission, but the cancer returned in a terminal form. Davidman died on 13 July 1960, aged 45. As a widower, Lewis wrote A Grief Observed
A Grief Observed
A Grief Observed is a collection of C. S. Lewis's reflections on the experience of bereavement following the death of his wife, Joy Gresham, in 1960. The book was first published in 1961 under the pseudonym N.W. Clerk as Lewis wished to avoid identification as the author...
to describe his feelings and pay tribute to his wife.
Shadowlands
ShadowlandsShadowlands
Shadowlands is a 1985 television film, written by William Nicholson, directed by Norman Stone and produced by David M. Thompson for BBC Wales. Its subject is the relationship between Oxford don and author, C. S. Lewis and Joy Gresham....
, a dramatized version of her life with Lewis by William Nicholson
William Nicholson (writer)
William Nicholson FRSL is a British screenwriter, playwright, and novelist.-Family:A native of Lewes, Sussex, William Nicholson was raised in a Catholic family in Gloucestershire. By the time he reached his tenth birthday, he had decided to become a writer. He was educated at Downside School,...
, has twice been filmed. In 1985, a television version was made by the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
starring Joss Ackland
Joss Ackland
Sidney Edmond Jocelyn Ackland CBE , known as Joss Ackland, is an English actor who has appeared in more than 130 films and numerous television roles.-Early life:...
as Lewis and Claire Bloom
Claire Bloom
Claire Bloom is an English film and stage actress.-Early life:Bloom was born in the North London suburb of Finchley, the daughter of Elizabeth and Edward Max Blume, who worked in sales...
as Gresham. A cinema film version
Shadowlands (film)
Shadowlands is a 1993 British biographical film directed by Richard Attenborough. The screenplay by William Nicholson is based on his 1985 television production and 1989 stage adaptation of the same name. The original television film began life as a script entitled I Call it Joy written for Thames...
was released in 1993, with Anthony Hopkins
Anthony Hopkins
Sir Philip Anthony Hopkins, KBE , best known as Anthony Hopkins, is a Welsh actor of film, stage and television...
as Jack (C. S. Lewis) and Debra Winger
Debra Winger
Mary Debra Winger is an American actress. Three-times an Oscar nominee, she received awards for acting in Terms of Endearment, for which she won the National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actress in 1983, and in A Dangerous Woman, for which she won the Tokyo International Film Festival...
as Joy. Both are available on DVD.
Nicholson's work, in part drawing on Douglas Gresham
Douglas Gresham
Douglas Gresham is an American-born British biographer and film producer, resident in Malta, and one of the two stepsons of C. S. Lewis.- Personal life :...
's book, Lenten Lands: My Childhood with Joy Davidman and CS Lewis (Macmillan USA 1988, HarperCollins, 1989), was also performed in London as an award-winning stage play
Shadowlands
Shadowlands is a 1985 television film, written by William Nicholson, directed by Norman Stone and produced by David M. Thompson for BBC Wales. Its subject is the relationship between Oxford don and author, C. S. Lewis and Joy Gresham....
in 1989–90. The play transferred successfully to Broadway in 1990–91, and was revived in London in 2007.
Epitaph
Here the whole world (stars, water, air,
And field, and forest, as they were
Reflected in a single mind)
Like cast off clothes was left behind
In ashes, yet with hopes that she,
Re-born from holy poverty,
In lenten lands, hereafter may
Resume them on her Easter Day.
This epitaph by C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
Clive Staples Lewis , commonly referred to as C. S. Lewis and known to his friends and family as "Jack", was a novelist, academic, medievalist, literary critic, essayist, lay theologian and Christian apologist from Belfast, Ireland...
was originally written on the death of Charles Williams
Charles Williams (UK writer)
Charles Walter Stansby Williams was a British poet, novelist, theologian, literary critic, and member of the Inklings.- Biography :...
; he later adapted it to place on his wife's grave.
Books
- Letter to a Comrade. Yale University Press, 1938
- Anya. The Macmillan Company, 1940
- War Poems of the United Nations: The Songs and Battle Cries of a World at War: Three Hundred Poems. One Hundred and Fifty Poets from Twenty Countries. Joy Davidman, editor. Dial Press, 1943
- Weeping Bay. MacMillan, 1950
- Smoke on the Mountain: An Interpretation of the Ten Commandments in Terms of Today. Foreword by C. S. Lewis. Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1954
- Out of My Bone: The Letters of Joy Davidman. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2009. ISBN 9780802863997