On Stories: And Other Essays on Literature

British author and scholar C.S. Lewis (1898-1963) once quipped that “you couldn’t get [him] a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit [him].” Lewis was not only a prolific writer; he was also a voracious reader. With his formidable literary appetite and formal training in Literature at Oxford, he became a skilled critic with the ability even to analyze the art of criticism. In this collection of essays, Lewis takes out his scalpel and applies his gift for criticism to famous (and at the time, contemporary, works) like 1984, Animal Farm, and The Lord of the Rings. He also reflects on the joys of reading stories for Story’s sake, takes on persistent misunderstandings about children’s literature (and about children themselves), and argues that many critics are actually quite bad at criticizing.