In the late 1980s, Kathryn Lindskoog created quite a stir in the "C.S. Lewis community" by attacking the authenticity of many of the works posthumously released by the Lewis estate. In a series of articles and books, including The C.S. Lewis Hoax (1988), Light in the Shadowlands: Protecting the Real C. S. Lewis (1994), and Sleuthing C.S. Lewis: More Light in the Shadowlands (2001) she accused Lewis' literary executor, Walter Hooper, of various misdemeanors, including:
- exaggerating the degree of closeness between him and Lewis
- fabricating the story of how the manuscripts came to be found (that they were saved from a bonfire set to destroy Lewis' papers following his death)
- actually forging some of the documents himself, notably the "discovered manuscript" of an unfinished science fiction novel called The Dark Tower, and the so-called Lefay fragment containing early drafts of some of the Narnia novels.
The debate grumbled along during the 90s and into the 2000s, sometimes running hot, sometimes running cold. The situation is described nicely in this blog entry:
The trilogy of Lindskoog’s literary mysteries have a Dan Brown quality to them. What makes them unique is the response to these books. The accusations galvanized frustration that some scholars and fans had about the protectionism of the C.S. Lewis estate and about the concerns they had over Hooper’s power in shaping the Lewis legend. Some scholars chaffed at the degree of control exhibited over manuscripts and Lewis material. Even for the skeptic of Lindskoog’s approach—and her accusations become frenetic, so much so that their credibility suffers even in presentation—there is just enough of truth to draw in the honest reader.
I am not interested in the first two points - it is just human nature to exaggerate one's closeness to a famous figure, and it doesn't really matter if Hooper plucked the papers from a bonfire, or found them in a dusty folder at the back of a cupboard. The question of forgery, whether Lewis actually wrote these works or not, is important. As both the interested parties are now deceased (Lindskoog in 2003 and Hooper in 2020) and there has been some time for rest and reflection, I wonder whether the community has arrived at a consensus specifically regarding the forgery allegations. Have any of the questioned works been proven to be either genuine or fake?
