Online Encyclopedia Search Tool

Your Online Encyclopedia

 

Online Encylopedia and Dictionary Research Site

Online Encyclopedia Free Search Online Encyclopedia Search    Online Encyclopedia Browse    welcome to our free dictionary for your research of every kind

Online Encyclopedia



Charles Williams



Charles Walter Stansby Williams (September 20, 1886 - May 15, 1945, educated at St Albans School, Hertfordshire and University College, London, he was a staff editor at the Oxford University Press, at the London offices from 1908 until 1939 and afterwards, due to World War II evacuations, at Oxford. In that capacity, he is best known for publishing the first major English-language edition of the works of Søren Kierkegaard.

Williams is better remembered as a writer, of poetry, novels, drama, criticism, and biographies. His best known works are his extremely dense and complex Arthurian poetry (in two books, Taliessin through Logres and The Region of the Summer Stars), and his seven novels of Christian mysticism, in which intense spiritual matters infuse their way into the modern world. Yet they are not horror, but fantasy. Modern writers of fantasy with contemporary settings, notably Tim Powers, cite Williams as a model and inspiration.

Williams gathered many followers and disciples during his lifetime. He was for a period a member of an offshoot of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn where he became acquainted with Evelyn Underhill. He was later to write the introduction to her published Letters. During his time in Oxford, he belonged to a purely literary discussion group, The Inklings that included C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien. Williams' novel, The Place of the Lion, was a great influence on Lewis, and the two became very close, with Williams rivalling Tolkien for pride of place within the group until his untimely death.

Williams's novels are:

  • War in Heaven (1930)
  • Many Dimensions (1931)
  • The Place of the Lion (1931)
  • The Greater Trumps (1932)
  • Shadows of Ecstasy (1933)
  • Descent into Hell (1937)
  • All Hallows Eve (1945)

He also wrote several non-fiction works of theology:

  • The Descent of the Dove
  • The Forgiveness of Sins
  • He Came Down From Heaven




Last updated: 11-07-2004 01:09:33