The Stella Aldwinckle Papers
Posted by Joel Heck on Monday, July 14, 2014
This update adds another 13,000 words to this 655-page document, which has nearly 1,900 footnotes and over 415,000 words. It contains a great deal more information about the meetings of the Socratic Club, especially between 1942 and 1955. In many cases, it includes some key ideas presented in papers read to the Socratic Club as well as responses by various people, including those by C. S. Lewis, Austin Farrer, E. L. Mascall, and others. Some of those who attended, who are known to have had contact with Lewis (J. O. Reed, E. L. Mascall, L. W. Grensted, and Austin Farrer) are mentioned as having attended, but I have not tried to list everyone who attended. I have included the actual number in attendance when that information was available. I have also included the location and the time of the meetings where available. The meetings almost always took place at 8:15 p.m. In some cases, when the paper is available in the Socratic Digest, I have not included key points the author made. In other cases, when the full text of the paper is available at the Wade Center, I have indicated this in a footnote and have included some of the main points. I have also included a few pieces of information about the London Socratic Club, in whose formation Dorothy Sayers was involved. However, that Socratic Club never really got off the ground. Elizabeth Anscombe was involved in the 25th anniversary celebration of the Oxford Socratic Club in 1967. These papers from Stella Aldwinckle contain much valuable firsthand information about C. S. Lewis and the Socratic Club, including mention of meetings not otherwise known to have occurred, not even mentioned in Walter Hooper's article on "Oxford's Bonny Fighter" in James Como's book about C. S. Lewis at the Breakfast Table and Other Reminiscences.
Tags: "socratic club" "stella aldwinckle"
blog comments powered by Disqus
