In C.S. Lewis’s earliest surviving letter to Joy Davidman Gresham, dated 22 December 1953, he wrote:
Dear Joy–
As far as I can remember you were non-committal about Childhood’s End: I suppose you were afraid that you might raise my expectations too high and lead to disappointment. If that was your aim, it has succeeded, for I came to it expecting nothing in particular and have been thoroughly bowled over. It is quite out of range of the common space-and-time writers…
[three paragraphs of substantial analysis follow]
And now, what do you think? Do you agree that it is AN ABSOLUTE CORKER?
…It is a strange comment on our age that such a book lies hid in a hideous paper-backed edition, wholly unnoticed by the cognoscenti, while any ‘realistic’ drivel about some neurotic in a London flat–something that needs no real invention at all, something that any educated man could write if he chose, may get seriously reviewed and mentioned in serious books–as if it really mattered. I wonder how long this tyranny will last? Twenty years ago I felt no doubt that I should live to see it all break up and great literature return: but here I am, losing teeth and hair, and still no break in the clouds.
One of many interesting things about this is that Joy actually knew Arthur C. Clarke, and other London science fiction writers such as Sam “John Christopher” Youd, long before she knew C.S. Lewis; her previous husband, William Lindsay Gresham, knew Martin Gardner, Frederik Pohl and Robert A. Heinlein, and Joy herself was a regular attender of the science fiction meetups at the White Horse Tavern which is how she knew Clarke.
She showed Lewis’s letter to Clarke, and (needless to say) he was thrilled, and fired off an enthusiastic reply. An exchange of views between Lewis and Clarke began, though there was no real meeting of minds. Clarke himself wrote in a preface to the published correspondence:
As far as I can recall, Lewis and I met only once. The encounter took place at Oxford in the well-known pub, the Eastgate. I was accompanied by my fellow Interplanetarian, Val Cleaver, and Lewis brought along a friend whose name I didn’t catch. Needless to say, neither side converted the other, and we refused to abandon our diabolical schemes of interplanetary conquest. But a fine time was had by all, and when, some hours later, we emerged a little unsteadily from the Eastgate, Dr. Lewis’s parting words were: “I’m sure you’re very wicked people—but how dull it would be if everyone was good.”
C.S. Lewis’s friend? It was another Oxford don, one J.R.R. Tolkien, who I met again some years later at a lunch in London. My only recollection of that occasion is Tolkien pointing to his diminutive publisher and whispering to me: “Now you see where I got the idea of the Hobbits?”
Perhaps one reason why our correspondence was virtually non-existent in later years was that I was in indirect touch with Lewis all the time through Joy Gresham. Every week we London science fiction writers, editors and publishers met in the White Horse tavern—the scarcely disguised background of my Tales of the White Hart. It was Joy who sent Lewis Childhood’s End—I don’t know whether she did it on her own volition, but can well believe I did a certain amount of arm-twisting.
I was very fond of Joy, one of the most charming and intelligent people I’ve ever known. Her ultimate marriage to C.S. Lewis was a great surprise to everyone. Its tragic outcome has been dramatized in the play, Shadowlands, and was described by Lewis himself in A Grief Observed, which I have never had the heart to read.
(I’ve now also read the correspondence between them, and will write that up in a couple of days.)
As well as seeing the TV play Shadowlands when it was first broadcast in 1985, I actually saw it on stage in London in 1990, with Nigel Hawthorne as C.S. Lewis, Jane Lapotaire as Joy and Geoffrey Toone as Lewis’ brother Warren. I can still count the number of West End shows I have been to on the fingers of both hands, and this was definitely in the top three.
Childhood’s End was Clarke’s fifth novel, after Against the Fall of Night, Prelude to Space, The Sands of Mars and Islands in the Sky. It’s in a completely different league to the others, and indeed to most science fiction of the day; and it’s impossible that Joy could not have recognised this. So it’s entirely plausible that Lewis’s guess was right, and she did deliberately underplay her enthusiasm for Childhood’s End to him, partly out of concern that he might not like it and partly in hope that he would be pleasantly surprised when he did.
It is an interesting coincidence that within a couple of years of each other, both Arthur C. Clarke and C.S. Lewis married much younger American women. While thinking about what I was going to write here, I looked a bit more into Clarke’s own brief marriage to Marilyn Torgeson née Mayfield, which almost precisely coincided with the finalisation and publication of Childhood’s End in 1953 – the first edition is dedicated “To Marilyn, who let me read the proofs on our honeymoon.” (You will probably not find this in your edition of the book.)
The received wisdom is that when they met in March 1953, Marilyn was 22, divorced and had a son by her previous marriage. However, the data I have gleaned on Ancestry.com suggests a more complex backstory, as follows:
- 28 April 1931: born as Marilyn Martin Mayfield to David Alexander Mayfield jr (1901-1997) and Nellie Lee Martin (1907-1932) in Jacksonville, Florida. She had one older brother, David Alexander Mayfield III (1928-2008).
- 1932 (precise date unknown): death of Marilyn’s mother.
- 1933: father remarries to Erma E. Myers, née Eleazer (1908-1964), from South Carolina.
- 12 August 1948: Marilyn, age 17, marries 19-year-old Robert Ives Brooks (1919-2011) in Jacksonville, which is where both were born.
- 24 May 1949: Marilyn, now 18, marries 21-year-old Edwin Torgeson (1927-2003) in Los Angeles. He was born in New York. Presumably her first marriage had been formally dissolved; available records are incomplete.
- 1950: Edwin and Marilyn Torgeson are recorded as living together in Jacksonville in a city directory.
- 24 April 1950: the federal census records Edwin as living in Alachua, Florida, 120 km / 70 miles from Jacksonville. His marital status is given as “Separated”.
- 25 March 1951: Marilyn gives birth to Philip Alexander Torgeson (1951-2005), who lives all his life in Jacksonville (and did not marry, as far as I can tell).
- 21 February 1953: Edwin Torgeson remarries in Los Angeles to Mary Jane Highfield (1930-2008). They have one son.
- 28 May 1953: Marilyn meets 35-year-old Arthur C. Clarke (1917-2008) a month after her 22nd birthday. She is working at the Ocean Reef Harbor Club in Key Largo, Florida.
- 15 June 1953: Marilyn and Arthur marry in New York, and she moves to London with him, leaving her son in the care of the Torgesons.
- August 1953: Childhood’s End is published, and rapidly becomes a huge success. As previously noted, it is dedicated “To Marilyn, who let me read the proofs on our honeymoon.”
- Late 1953: the Clarkes’ marriage does not work out.
- December 1953: Marilyn returns to Florida.
- January 1954: Arthur visits Marilyn in Florida to agree the terms of their separation.
- February 1955: publication of Arthur’s next novel, Earthlight. This time the dedication is “To Val/who massacred the second draft/And Bernie who slaughtered the third—/but particularly to Marilyn who spent the advance before I got to Chapter 2.”
- 1956: Arthur moves permanently to Sri Lanka, where he later develops a relationship with Leslie Ekanayake (1947-77).
- December 1964: Marilyn and Arthur’s divorce is formalised. Neither married again.
- 24 June 1991: Marilyn dies aged 60 in Jacksonville, still using the surname “Clarke” after almost forty years.
- 19 March 2008: Arthur C. Clarke dies aged 90 in Sri Lanka.
Clarke’s authorised biographies say that Marilyn had one previous marriage and a child at the time that they met, but in fact, as far as I can tell, she had been married twice. I note that her son was born eleven months after Edwin was recorded in the census as ‘separated’, though it’s also clear that Edwin exercised paternal rights and treated Philip as his child. It’s not really anyone else’s business, of course.
So, coming back to Childhood’s End for myself, I had read it a couple of times previously but needed to be reminded of it. (I’m a bit ashamed to realise that the last time I name-checked Clarke’s best books in a blog post here, I forgot about it.) It was a happy return.
To get one thing out of the way, here’s the second paragraph of the third chapter:
This was another of those restless nights when his brain went on turning like a machine whose governor had failed. He knew better than to woo sleep any further, and reluctantly climbed out of bed. Throwing on his dressing gown, he strolled out on to the roof garden of his modest flat. There was not one of his direct subordinates who did not possess much more luxurious quarters, but this place was ample for Stormgren’s needs. He had reached the position where neither personal possessions nor official ceremony could add anything to his stature.
Many of Clarke’s books explore, with some fascination, the world of metaphysics and the spirit, and I think Childhood’s End sets the tone for that exploration. It’s a book that is ahead of its time, sowing the seeds for the hippy era a decade in the future, with the whole of humanity being prepared by for a massive shift of consciousness, into transcendence – but overseen by the alien Overlords who force the people of Earth to give up childish things like war and religion. It feeds directly into the climax of 2001. Yes, it’s a clunky 1950s story in form and style, but not in content.
It’s also got the closest examination of human relationships that I can think of in any of Clarke’s works. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that the women (or indeed the men) are particularly memorable, but the book shows a sympathy for emotional and family life that is unusual both for sf of that time and for Clarke’s work as a whole. We know that he did not meet Marilyn until the book was almost finished, but I surmise that he was emotionally ready for a committed relationship, and she happened to be in the right place at the right time. (Though unfortunately they turned out to be the wrong people for each other.)
You can get it here.
So, this was the top book on my shelves which I had not already reviewed online. Appropriately enough, the next is Voyage to Venus, by C.S. Lewis.
