JOY GRESHAM

'Helen Joy Davidman' (born April 18 1915 - died July 13 1960) was an American poet and writer, a radical communist, and an atheist until her conversion to Christianity in the late 1940s. Her first husband was the writer William Lindsay Gresham. They had two children together: David and Douglas. Her second marriage was to the writer and Oxford don, C.S. Lewis.
After she and Lewis met, Joy separated from her first husband and moved to England with her two sons, David and Douglas Gresham. Lewis at first regarded her as an agreeable intellectual companion and personal friend, and it was at least overtly on this level that he agreed to enter into a civil marriage contract with her so that she could continue to live in the UK. It then became clear that she had terminal bone cancer, and the relationship developed to the point that they sought a Christian marriage. Since she was divorced, this was not straightforward in the Church of England at the time, but a friend, the Rev. Peter Bide, performed the ceremony at Joy's hospital bed on March 21 1956.
She recovered briefly, but eventually succumbed to cancer on July 13 1960, aged 45. Lewis wrote ''A Grief Observed'' in response to her death. Lewis died three years later.

Contents

Shadowlands

Epitaph

Books (as Joy Davidman)

See also

External links

Shadowlands

''Shadowlands'', a dramatized version of her life with Lewis by William Nicholson, has twice been filmed. In 1985, a television version was made by the BBC starring Joss Ackland as Lewis and Claire Bloom as Gresham. An HBO version was released in 1993, with Anthony Hopkins as Jack (C. S. Lewis) and Debra Winger as Joy. Both versions are available on DVD. Nicholson's work was originally performed as a stage play and was loosely based on Douglas Gresham's book ''Lenten Lands''.

Epitaph

:''Here the whole world (stars, water, air,''
:''And field, and forest, as they were''
:''Reflected in a single mind)''
:''Like cast off clothes was left behind''
:''In ashes, yet with hopes that she,''
:''Re-born from holy poverty,''
:''In lenten lands, hereafter may''
:''Resume them on her Easter Day.''
This epitaph by C. S. Lewis was originally written on the death of Charles Williams; he later adapted it to place on his wife's grave.

Books (as Joy Davidman)

''Letter to a Comrade''. Yale University Press, 1938.
''Anya''. The Macmillan Company, 1940.
''War Poems of the United Nations: The Songs and Battle Cries of a World at War''. Three Hundred Poems. One Hundred and Fifty Poets from Twenty Countires. Joy Davidman, editor. Dial Press, 1943.
''Weeping Bay''. MacMillan, 1950.
''Smoke on the Mountain: An Interpretation of the Ten Commandments in Terms of Today''. Foreword by C. S. Lewis. Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1954.

See also

★ Douglas Gresham

★ C. S. Lewis

★ ''A Grief Observed'', written by Lewis from his experience following Gresham's death

External links

★ "Lost in the Shadow of C.S. Lewis's Fame" (San Francisco Chronicle)

★ In Lenten Lands

★ The Kilns: C.S. Lewis' Oxford Refuge

★ C.S. Lewis: 20th-Century Christian Knight