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50 free C. S. Lewis trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This C. S. Lewis trivia quiz is about the man rather than the wardrobe: for the books themselves see our Narnia quiz. It starts in Belfast with a solicitor father, a mathematician mother who died when he was nine, the dog whose name he took as his own, the imaginary animal kingdom of Boxen, the English schools he loathed and the tutor he called the Great Knock, then follows him to Oxford, the trenches of the Somme, the shell that wounded him, and the promise to Paddy Moore that shaped the next thirty years. The second half covers the atheist who was 'very angry with God for not existing', the arguments with Tolkien and the late-night walk on Addison's Walk, the Kilns and the child evacuees, the BBC broadcasts that became Mere Christianity, the Inklings, the demon who dedicated his letters to Tolkien, the debate with Elizabeth Anscombe, the CBE he refused, the Cambridge chair, Joy Davidman and the bedside wedding, the pseudonymous book on grief, and the death that shared a day with John F. Kennedy and Aldous Huxley. Difficulty runs from easy to expert and is shown on every question. Every answer was checked against a reference page and each question carries its citation. Try our Narnia and J. R. R. Tolkien quizzes next.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In which city was C. S. Lewis born in 1898?
Belfast
His father was a solicitor and his mother the first female mathematics graduate at Queen's College Belfast.
Q 02How did Lewis come to be known as 'Jack' all his life?
He took his dead dog Jacksie's name at the age of four
At first he answered to nothing but Jacksie; later he accepted Jack.
Q 03What was the name of the animal-run fantasy world Lewis invented as a boy with his brother Warnie?
Boxen
He had fallen in love with Beatrix Potter's stories and wrote and illustrated his own animal tales.
Q 04Lewis's mother Flora died in 1908 of what, when he was nine?
Cancer
His father then sent him to Wynyard School in Watford, which soon closed for lack of pupils.
Q 05At which Malvern prep school, 'Chartres' in his autobiography, did Lewis abandon Christianity?
Cherbourg House
He also developed a fascination with European mythology and the occult there.
Q 06What nickname did Lewis give his private tutor William T. Kirkpatrick?
The Great Knock
Kirkpatrick instilled a love of Greek literature and sharpened the debating skills that made him a formidable apologist.
Q 07What did the teenage Lewis call the Norse legends that awakened the longing he later named 'joy'?
Northernness
He wrote epic poetry and even opera to capture his passion for Norse mythology.
Q 08How did Lewis describe English accents on first arriving in England as a boy?
'Like the voices of demons'
He conceived 'a hatred for England which took many years to heal' and stayed proudly Irish all his life.
Q 09Which Irish poet did Lewis call 'an author exactly after my own heart', meeting him in Oxford in 1921?
W. B. Yeats
He was surprised his English peers ignored Yeats and the Celtic Revival: 'thank the gods that I am Irish'.
Q 10Lewis spent his 1958 honeymoon at the Old Inn in which Northern Irish village?
Crawfordsburn
He visited Northern Ireland regularly and sought out Irish company in England.
Q 11Into which regiment was Lewis commissioned in the First World War?
The Somerset Light Infantry
He reached the front line in the Somme valley on his 19th birthday.
Q 12How was Lewis wounded in April 1918?
By a British shell falling short
Two colleagues were killed in the same blast during the assault on Riez du Vinage.
Q 13What did Lewis win at Oxford in 1920, 1922 and 1923?
A triple first
Honour Moderations, Greats and English; he became a Fellow of Magdalen in 1925 and stayed 29 years.
Q 21Where was Lewis on his way to when he made his specific commitment to Christian belief?
The zoo
He joined the Church of England, somewhat to Tolkien's disappointment.
Q 22Why did Lewis refuse to produce press columns for the Ministry of Information during WWII?
He did not want to 'write lies' to deceive the enemy
He did serve in the Oxford Home Guard, and The Kilns took in child evacuees.
Q 23Lewis's wartime BBC broadcasts of 1941-43 were later collected as which book?
Mere Christianity
Air Chief Marshal Sir Donald Hardman said Lewis provided 'a key to the meaning of the universe'; Alistair Cooke sneered at 'the alarming vogue of Mr. C.S. Lewis'.
Q 14Lewis lived with and cared for Janie Moore for decades because of a pact made with whom?
Her son Paddy, his army roommate, killed in 1918
The two cadets promised to look after each other's families; Lewis called her 'mother' and visited her nursing home daily until she died in 1951.
Q 15How old was Janie Moore when the 18-year-old Lewis met her?
45
Whether they were lovers is disputed; biographer George Sayer changed his mind and decided they were.
Q 16What was the house near Oxford Lewis moved into in 1930 with Warnie and Mrs Moore called?
The Kilns
It stood in Headington Quarry; the nature reserve behind it now bears his name.
Q 17Which Scottish writer's book Phantastes helped turn the 16-year-old Lewis from atheism?
George MacDonald
In The Great Divorce Lewis meets MacDonald in Heaven and calls it his Beatrice moment: 'Here begins the new life'.
Q 18Which G. K. Chesterton book helped bring Lewis back to Christianity?
The Everlasting Man
Arguments with Tolkien, whom he first met on 11 May 1926, did the rest.
Q 19How did Lewis describe himself on the night in 1929 when he 'gave in, and admitted that God was God'?
'The most dejected and reluctant convert in all England'
He was 'kicking, struggling, resentful, and darting his eyes in every direction for a chance to escape'.
Q 20Lewis's 1931 conversion followed a late-night stroll with Tolkien and Hugo Dyson along what?
Addison's Walk
Tolkien was disappointed he became an Anglican rather than a Catholic.
Q 24Lewis was the first president of which university society, from 1942 to 1954?
The Oxford Socratic Club
He resigned on leaving Oxford for a new chair.
Q 25Which honour did Lewis decline in December 1951 to avoid political associations?
A CBE
It was on George VI's last honours list.
Q 26In 1954 Lewis took up a newly founded chair in Mediaeval and Renaissance Literature at which university?
Cambridge
He kept his Oxford home and returned every weekend; he argued there was no such thing as an English Renaissance.
Q 27Why did Lewis first marry Joy Davidman, in a register office in April 1956?
So she could continue to live in Britain
He regarded her at first as an intellectual companion; a bedside Christian wedding followed after her terminal diagnosis in 1957.
Q 28Joy Davidman had been a member of which organisation before her conversion?
The Communist Party USA
An American writer of Jewish background, she was separated from the alcoholic novelist William L. Gresham.
Q 29Who performed the Christian marriage of Lewis and Joy at her hospital bedside in March 1957?
The Rev. Peter Bide
Because Joy was divorced, an ordinary Church of England wedding was not straightforward.
Q 30Lewis's 1960 holiday with Joy in Greece marked what?
His only Channel crossing after 1918
He loved walking but disliked travel; Joy died that July after her illness returned.