Charles Walter Stansby Williams (20 September 1886 – 15 May 1945) was an English poet, novelist, playwright, theologian and literary critic. Most of his life was spent in London, where he was born, but in 1939 he moved to Oxford with the university press for which he worked until his death.
Charles Williams was born in London in 1886, the only son of (Richard) Walter Stansby Williams (1848–1929) and Mary (née Wall). His father Walter was a journalist and foreign business correspondent for an importing firm, writing in French and German,[1][2] who was a 'regular and valued' contributor of verse, stories and articles to many popular magazines.[3] His mother Mary, the sister of the ecclesiologist and historianJ. Charles Wall,[3] was a formermilliner (hatmaker),[4] ofIslington. He had one sister, Edith, born in 1889. The Williams family lived in 'shabby-genteel' circumstances, owing to Walter's increasing blindness and the decline of the firm by which he was employed, in Holloway.[4] In 1894 the family moved toSt Albans inHertfordshire, where Williams lived until his marriage in 1917.[5]
Educated atSt Albans School, Williams was awarded a scholarship toUniversity College London, but he left in 1904 without a degree, as he could not pay the tuition fees.
Williams began work in 1904 in aMethodist bookroom. He was employed by theOxford University Press (OUP) as a proofreading assistant in 1908 and quickly climbed to the position of editor. He continued to work at the OUP in various positions of increasing responsibility until his death in 1945. One of his greatest editorial achievements was the publication of the first major English-language edition of the works ofSøren Kierkegaard.[6] His work was part of theliterature event in theart competition at the1924 Summer Olympics.[7]
Although chiefly remembered as a novelist, Williams also published poetry, works of literary criticism, theology, drama, history, biography, and a voluminous number of book reviews. Some of his best-known novels areWar in Heaven (1930),Descent into Hell (1937), andAll Hallows' Eve (1945).[8]T. S. Eliot, who wrote an introduction for the last of these, described Williams's novels as "supernatural thrillers" because they explore the sacramental intersection of the physical with the spiritual while also examining the ways in which power, even spiritual power, can corrupt as well as sanctify.
All of Williams's fantasies, unlike those ofJ. R. R. Tolkien and most of those ofC. S. Lewis, are set in the contemporary world. Williams has been described byColin Manlove as one of the three main writers of "Christian fantasy" in the twentieth century (the other two being C. S. Lewis andT. F. Powys).[9] Some writers of fantasy novels with contemporary settings, notablyTim Powers, cite Williams as their inspiration.[10]
W. H. Auden, one of Williams's greatest admirers, reportedly re-read Williams's extraordinary and highly unconventional history of the church,The Descent of the Dove (1939), every year.[11] Williams's study of Dante entitledThe Figure of Beatrice (1944) was very highly regarded at its time of publication and continues to be consulted byDante scholars today. His work inspiredDorothy L. Sayers to undertake her translation ofThe Divine Comedy. Williams, however, regarded his most important work to be his extremely dense and complexArthurian poetry, of which two books were published,Taliessin through Logres (1938) andThe Region of the Summer Stars (1944), and more remained unfinished at his death. Some of Williams's essays were collected and published posthumously inImage of the City and Other Essays (1958), edited byAnne Ridler.
Williams gathered many followers and disciples during his lifetime. He was, for a period, a member of the Salvator Mundi Temple of theFellowship of the Rosy Cross. He met fellow AnglicanEvelyn Underhill in 1937 and later wrote the introduction to her publishedLetters in 1943.[12]
WhenWorld War II broke out in 1939,Oxford University Press moved its offices from London toOxford. Williams was reluctant to leave his beloved city, and his wife Florence refused to go. From the nearly 700 letters he wrote to his wife during the war years, a generous selection has been published – "primarily… love letters," the editor calls them.[13]
The move to Oxford did allow him to participate regularly in Lewis's literary society, theInklings. In this setting Williams read (and improved) his final published novel,All Hallows' Eve. He heard J. R. R. Tolkien read aloud to the group some of his early drafts ofThe Lord of the Rings. In addition to meeting in Lewis's rooms at Oxford, they regularly met atThe Eagle and Child pub in Oxford. During this time Williams gave lectures at Oxford onJohn Milton,William Wordsworth, and other authors. He received an honorary M.A. degree in 1943.[14][15]
Williams is buried inHolywell Cemetery in Oxford. His headstone bears the word "poet" followed by the words "Under the Mercy", a phrase often used by Williams himself.[16]
In 1917 Williams married his first sweetheart, Florence Conway, following a long courtship during which he presented her with a sonnet sequence that would later become his first published book of poetry,The Silver Stair.[17][18] Williams nicknamed his wife 'Michal'.[19] Their son Michael was born in 1922.
Williams was an unswerving and devoted member of theChurch of England, reputedly with a tolerance of the scepticism of others and a firm belief in the necessity of a "doubting Thomas" in any apostolic body.[20]
Charles, Florence and Michael are buried in Holywell Cemetery in Oxford, next to St Cross Church where they worshipped.[19]
Although Williams attracted the attention and admiration of some of the most notable writers of his day, includingT. S. Eliot andW. H. Auden, his greatest admirer was probablyC. S. Lewis, whose novelThat Hideous Strength (1945) has been regarded as partially inspired by his acquaintance with both the man and his novels and poems. Williams came to know Lewis after reading Lewis's then-recently published studyThe Allegory of Love; he was so impressed he jotted down a letter of congratulation and dropped it in the mail. Coincidentally, Lewis had just finished reading Williams's novelThe Place of the Lion and had written a similar note of congratulation. The letters crossed in the mail and led to an enduring and fruitful friendship.[citation needed]
Lewis wrote the Preface toEssays presented to Charles Williams, originally intended as afestschrift for Williams, but published after his death. Essays were contributed by Lewis, Sayers, Tolkien,Owen Barfield,Gervase Mathew andWarren Lewis.[21]
Williams developed the concept of co-inherence and gave rare consideration to the theology of romantic love. Falling in love for Williams was a form of mystical envisioning in which one saw the beloved as he or she was seen through the eyes of God. Co-inherence was a term used inPatristic theology to describe the relationship between the human and divine natures ofJesus Christ and the relationship between the persons of the blessedTrinity.[22][23] Williams extended the term to include the ideal relationship between the individual parts of God's creation, including human beings. It is our mutual indwelling: Christ in us and we in Christ, interdependent. It is also the web of interrelationships, social and economic and ecological, by which the social fabric and the natural world function.[24] But especially for Williams, co-inherence is a way of talking about theBody of Christ and thecommunion of saints. He proposed founding an order, to be called the Companions of the Co-inherence, who would practice substitution and exchange, living in love-in-God, truly bearing one another's burdens, being willing to sacrifice and to forgive, living from and for one another in Christ.[25] According to Gunnar Urang, co-inherence is the focus of all Williams's novels.[26]
1930:War in Heaven (London:Victor Gollancz)[28] – TheHoly Grail surfaces in an obscure country parish and becomes variously a sacramental object to protect or a vessel of power to exploit.
1930:Many Dimensions (London: Victor Gollancz)[29] – An evil antiquarian illegally purchases the fabled Stone of Suleiman (Williams uses this Muslim form rather than the more familiarKing Solomon) from its Islamic guardian and returns to England to discover not only that the Stone can multiply itself infinitely without diminishing the original, but that it also allows its possessor to transcend the barriers of space and time.
"Et in Sempiternum Pereant," a short story first published inThe London Mercury, December 1935,[30] in which Lord Arglay (protagonist inMany Dimensions) has his life put at risk encountering a ghost on the path to damnation.[31] Later included inThe Oxford Book of English Ghost Stories (London: Oxford University Press, 1986)
1931:The Place of the Lion (London: Mundanus)[32] –Platonicarchetypes begin to appear around an English country town, wreaking havoc and drawing to the surface the spiritual strengths and flaws of individual characters.
1932:The Greater Trumps (London: Victor Gollancz)[33] – The originalTarot deck is used to unlock enormous metaphysical powers by allowing the possessors to see across space and time, create matter, and raise powerful natural storms.
1933:Shadows of Ecstasy (London: Victor Gollancz)[34] – Ahumanistic adept has discovered that by focusing his energies inward he can extend his life almost indefinitely. He undertakes an experiment using African lore to die and resurrect his own body thereby assuring his immortality. His followers begin a revolutionary movement to supplant European civilisation. The first of Williams's novels to be written, though not the first published.[20]
1937:Descent into Hell (London:Faber & Faber)[35] – Generally thought to be Williams's best novel,[according to whom?]Descent deals with various forms of selfishness, and how the cycle of sin brings about the necessity for redemptive acts. In it, an academic becomes so far removed from the world that he fetishises a woman to the extent that his perversion takes the form of asuccubus. Other characters include adoppelgänger, the ghost of a suicidalVictorian labourer, and a playwright modelled in some ways on the author. Illustrates Williams's belief in the replacement of sin and substitutional love.
1945:All Hallows' Eve (London: Faber & Faber)[36] – Follows the fortunes of two women after death and their interactions with those they knew before, contrasting the results of action based either on selfishness or an accepting love.
1970–72:The Noises That Weren't There. Unfinished. First three chapters published inMythlore 6 (Autumn 1970),[37] 7 (Winter 1971)[38] and 8 (Winter 1972).[39]
1912:The Silver Stair (London: Herbert and Daniel)
1917:Poems of Conformity (London: Oxford University Press)
1920:Divorce (London: Oxford University Press)
1924:Windows of Night (London: Oxford University Press)
1930:Heroes and Kings (London: Sylvan Press)
1954:Taliessin through Logres (1938) andThe Region of the Summer Stars (1944) (London: Oxford University Press)
1991:Charles Williams, ed. David Llewellyn Dodds (Woodbridge and Cambridge, UK:Boydell & Brewer: Arthurian Poets series). Part II, Uncollected and unpublished poems (pp. 149–281).
Ashenden, Gavin (2007),Charles Williams: Alchemy and Integration, Kent State University Press.
Carpenter, Humphrey (1978),The Inklings, London: Allen & Unwin.
Cavaliero, Glen (1983),Charles Williams: Poet of Theology, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.
Dunning, Stephen M. (2000),The Crisis and the Quest – A Kierkegaardian Reading of Charles Williams, Paternoster Biblical and Theological Monographs.
Fiddes, Paul S. (2015),"Charles Williams and the Problem of Evil", in C. S. Lewis and His Circle: Essays and Memoirs from the Oxford C. S. Lewis Society, edited by Roger White, Judith Wolfe, and Brendan N. Wolfe. pp. 65-88, Oxford University Press.
Glyer, Diana Pavlac (2007),The Company They Keep: C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien as Writers in Community, Kent, O.: Kent State University Press,ISBN978-0-87338-890-0.
Hadfield, Alice Mary (1983),Charles Williams: An Exploration of His Life and Work, Oxford: Oxford UP.
Heath-Stubbs, John (1955),Charles Williams (British council pamphlets), Writers & their work, London: Longmans.
Hefling, Charles (2011), "Charles Williams: Words, Images, and (the) Incarnation", in Hein, David; Henderson, Edward (eds.),C. S. Lewis and Friends: Faith and the Power of Imagination, London: SPCK, pp. 73–90.
Hillegas, Mark R., ed. (1969),Shadows of Imagination: The Fantasies of C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, and Charles Williams, Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press.
Horne, Brian (1995),Charles Williams: A Celebration, Gracewing,ISBN0-852-44331-5.
Howard, Thomas (1983),The Novels of Charles Williams, New York and London: Oxford University Press.
Huttar, Charles A; Schakel, Peter J, eds. (1996),The Rhetoric of Vision: Essays on Charles Williams, Lewisburg, London: Bucknell University Press, Associated University Presses.
Karlson, Henry (2010),Thinking with the Inklings, CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform,ISBN978-1-4505-4130-5.
King, Roma A. Jr. (1990),The Pattern in the Web: The Mythical Poetry of Charles Williams. Kent, O., and London: Kent State University Press.
Lewis, C. S. (1948), "Williams and the Arthuriad," inArthurian Torso, ed. C. S. Lewis, London: Oxford University Press, pp. 93–200.
Lindop, Grevel (2015),Charles Williams: The Third Inkling, Oxford University Press{{citation}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
Moorman, Charles (1960),Arthurian Triptych: Mythic Materials in Charles Williams, C. S. Lewis, and T. S. Eliot, Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.
Moorman, Charles (1966),The Precincts of Felicity: The Augustinian City of the Oxford Christians. Gainesville: University of Florida Press.
Walsh, Chad (1974), "Charles Williams' Novels and the Contemporary Mutation of Consciousness", in Montgomery, John Warwick (ed.),Myth, Allegory and Gospel: An Interpretation of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, G.K. Chesterton, Charles Williams, Minneapolis: Bethany Fellowship, pp. 53–77.
Ware, Kallistos (2015),"Sacramentalism in C. S. Lewis and Charles Williams", in C. S. Lewis and His Circle: Essays and Memoirs from the Oxford C. S. Lewis Society, edited by Roger White, Judith Wolfe, and Brendan N. Wolfe. pp. 53-64, Oxford University Press.
Wendling, Susan (2006), "Charles Williams: Priest of the Co-inherence", inINKLINGS Forever, Vol. V, a collection of essays presented at the Fifth Frances White Ewbank Colloquium on C.S. Lewis and Friends, presented at Taylor University.
^Higgins, Sørina (12 June 2013)."Under the Cathedral: CW's early life 1886–1908".The Oddest Inkling: An exploration of the works of poet Charles Williams (1886-1945). Word press. Retrieved14 December 2016.
^Zaleski, Philip; Zaleski, Carol (2015).The Fellowship: The Literary Lives of the Inklings: J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Owen Barfield, Charles Williams. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux (Macmillan). p. 223.ISBN978-0-37415409-7.
^abLindop, Grevel (2009). Bray, Suzanne; Sturch, Richard (eds.).Charles Williams and his Contemporaries. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. p. 3.ISBN978-1-44380565-0.
^abLindop, Grevel (2015).Charles Williams: The Third Inkling. Oxford University Press. p. 6.ISBN978-0-19928415-3.
^Paulus, Michael J. Jr. (2009), "From a Publisher's Point of View: Charles Williams's Role in Publishing Kierkegaard in English", in Bray, Suzanne; Sturch, Richard (eds.),Charles Williams and His Contemporaries(PDF), Newcastle, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing,ISBN978-1-4438-0565-0, archived fromthe original(PDF) on 26 August 2014, retrieved10 January 2012
^Samuelson, David N. (1985).Bleiler, E.F. (ed.). "Charles Williams".Supernatural Fiction Writers: Fantasy and Horror. New York: Scribner's:631–38.ISBN0-68417808-7.
^Carretero González, Margarita; Hidalgo Tenorio, Encarnación (2001).Behind the Veil of Familiarity: C.S. Lewis (1898–1998). Peter Lang. p. 305.ISBN0-82045099-5.
^King, Roma A Jr, ed. (2002).To Michal from Serge: Letters from Charles Williams to his wife, Florence, 1939–1945. Kent, Ohio; London: Kent State University Press. p. 4.
^Marshall, Ashley (2007). "Reframing Charles Williams: Modernist Doubt and the Crisis of World War inAll Hallows' Eve".Journal of Modern Literature.30 (2): 67.doi:10.2979/JML.2007.30.2.64.JSTOR4619328.S2CID162361889.
^Glen Cavaliero, "A Metaphysical Epiphany? Charles Williams and the Art of the Ghost Story," inThe Rhetoric of Vision, ed.Charles A. Huttar and Peter J. Schakel. Lewisburg: Bucknell UP, 1996 (pp. 93–97).
