that he may soon be both a husband and a widower, then finding that something like a miracle has taken place and Joy’s cancer has seemingly disappeared, and then, later, the fierce shock of her death. Because both Lewis and his correspondent had in common a mélange of physical troubles, we learn more here than anywhere else of his increasingly numerous maladies that were finally to join hands in his decease. There is Lewis the dreader of poverty who, it became known after his death, gave away two-thirds
Page ix