C.S. Lewis, Númenórean

Abstract

An exploration of the background and employment of references to J.R.R. Tolkien’s Númenor in C.S. Lewis’s That Hideous Strength. Lewis and Tolkien had agreed to write “spiritual thrillers” discovering myth through space and time. But while Lewis completed and published Out of the Silent Planet and went on to write two sequels, Tolkien abandoned The Lost Road and worked on The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings in their place. In an effort to persuade Tolkien to return to The Lost Road, Lewis inserted references to it in both Out of the Silent Planet and That Hideous Strength. Bratman explores how Lewis, working from memory of hearing Tolkien’s story read aloud, employed Numinor, as he spelled it, as a hermetic Atlantean myth in his novel, and lastly considers Tolkien’s mixed reaction to having his unpublished myth used publicly in this manner.