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The Unknown Garden of Another’s Heart
The Surprising Friendship between C.S. Lewis and Arthur Greeves
Imprint: Wipf and Stock
In April of 1914, fifteen-year-old C. S. Lewis walked into a sick neighbor's bedroom for a visit. This neighbor, eighteen-year-old Arthur Greeves, was reading a book titled Myths of the Norsemen.
Their meeting was a spark that would fan into a flame a friendship that lasted almost fifty years. Drawing on original research of the 296 letters written by Lewis to Greeves that span the life of their friendship, readers will explore the deep, emotional, and raw relationship of two dissimilar people where each unveiled himself to the other in ways they did with no one else. Embedded in this relationship is the trajectory of Lewis's faith journey, starting out as an arrogant skeptic and transforming into the greatest apologist of the last one hundred years. Readers will be drawn into this beautiful friendship and in turn become better friends to those around them.
Joseph A. Kohm Jr. is an attorney and vice president for development with the C. S. Lewis Institute.
“If you want to see the meaning of true friendship in action, look no further than this inspiring book written by Joe Kohm! The lifelong, deep, and authentic correspondence between C. S. Lewis and his childhood friend, Arthur Greeves, is described beautifully by Kohm. New insights are here for fans of Lewis, scholars, and all who long for deeper relationships.”
—Joel Woodruff, President, C. S. Lewis Institute
“Joe Kohm has done us a great service by distilling hundreds of letters between two lifelong friends to give us deeper glimpses into their lives and the nature of friendship. Along the way, he explores the wonders of God’s grace, the nature of Christian faith, and the joys of spiritual growth. This book showed me things about C. S. Lewis I had not realized before and made me want to deepen my friendships.”
—Randy Newman, Senior Fellow for Apologetics and Evangelism, The C. S. Lewis Institute
“Kohm shows us what wonders ensue when one dares to cross a street to visit a sick neighbor. This exceptional work shows the secret garden of an abiding fifty-year friendship between Lewis and his homely and fascinating first friend, Arthur Greeves. Kohm chronicles how the mulch of letters fertilized key ideas and themes in Lewis’s thought, providing a fresh and welcome narrative of the power of friendship as a road to knowing God.”
—Terry Lindvall, C. S. Lewis Chair of Communication and Christian Thought, Virginia Wesleyan University