Sheldon Vanauken
From Free net encyclopedia
Current revision
Sheldon Vanauken (1914 - October 18, 1996) is an American author, best known for his autobiographical book A Severe Mercy (1977), which recounts his and his wife's friendship with C.S. Lewis, their conversion to Christianity and dealing with tragedy. He published a sequel, Under the Mercy in 1985.
Vanauken had degrees from Wabash College, Yale, and Oxford. He and his wife, Davy, had become Christians while at Oxford in the early 1950s, partly owing to the friendship and influence of C. S. Lewis, who was teaching there at the time. After Oxford, Vanauken returned to Lynchburg College, Virginia, where he taught history and literature. He lost his wife in 1955.
He was a contributing editor of the New Oxford Review and a frequent contributor to Crisis magazine, as well as to other periodicals and newspapers. In 1981 he converted to Catholicism.
Works
- A Severe Mercy (1977)
- Gateway to Heaven (novel, 1980)
- Under the Mercy (1985)
- The Glittering Illusion: English Sympathy for the Southern Confederacy (1985)
- Mercies: Collected Poems (1988)
- The Little Lost Marion and Other Mercies (1996)Template:US-writer-stub