Will Vaus

Anne Jenkins, a child correspondent of C. S. Lewis who wrote the preface to The Hidden Story of Narnia , died yesterday after a long battle with cancer. Anne is the one to my immediate left in the photo above. The photo was taken at a book-signing Anne arranged for me at Living Oasis Bookshop in Watford, England, Anne's hometown. Please be in prayer for Anne's husband Steve and their grown children. As Anne struggled valiantly against cancer we often spoke about how she was "between the paws of Aslan". She is surely there now, with her beloved Lord. But I will miss her until we meet again.

I was in Watford, England today for a book-signing at the Living Oasis Bookshop run by Jill (far left) and Jane (far right). Standing next to me, on the right, is Anne Waller Jenkins who loved the Narnia books as a child, wrote to C. S. Lewis with a question about The Silver Chair , and got a letter back! That letter served as the inspiration for my book, The Hidden Story of Narnia: A Book-by-Book Guide to C. S. Lewis' Spiritual Themes. It has been wonderful to meet Anne, to sign books at the Rainbow Fayre at her church near Watford, as well as visiting all the delightful people who came out to Living Oasis today to buy my book! Anne and her husband Steve also took me on a tour of Watford for the past couple of days. Many people probably do not realize that C. S. Lewis first went to boarding school in Watford in 1908. Above is a photo of what the original school building looked like. Below is what the site looks like today. The building has changed but the tall cedar tree

The outline of my new book, The Hidden Story of Narnia , is based upon a letter that C. S. Lewis wrote to a girl named Anne in 1961. In the letter (pictured above) Lewis wrote: "The whole Narnian story is about Christ. That is to say, I asked myself 'Supposing there really were a world like Narnia and supposing it had (like our world) gone wrong and supposing Christ wanted to go into that world and save it (as He did ours) what might have happened?' The stories are my answer. Since Narnia is a world of Talking Beasts I thought he would become a Talking Beast there, as he became a Man here. I pictured Him becoming a lion there because (a.) the lion is supposed to be the King of beasts: (b.) Christ is called 'The Lion of Judah' in the Bible: (c.) I'd been having strange dreams about lions when I began writing the books. The whole series works out like this: The Magician's Nephew tells the creation and how evil entered Narnia. The Lion etc ____________

As from Magdalene College, Cambridge 5 March 1961 Dear Anne -- What Aslan meant when he said he had died is, in one sense, plain enough. Read the earlier book in the series called The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe , and you will find the full story of how he was killed by the White Witch and came to life again. When you have read that, I think you will probably see that there is deeper meaning behind it . The whole Narnian story is about Christ. That is to say, I asked myself 'Supposing there really were a world like Narnia, and supposing it had (like our world) gone wrong, and supposing Christ wanted to go into that world and save it (as He did ours) what might have happened?' The stories are my answer. Since Narnia is a world of Talking Beasts, I thought He would become a Talking Beast there, as he became a Man here. I pictured Him becoming a lion there because (a) The lion is supposed to be the King of beasts: (b) Christ is called 'The Lion of Judah&