# Joy Davidman
**Joy Davidman** (Helen Joy Davidman; April 18, 1915 – July 13, 1960) was an American poet, novelist, critic, and essayist who won the 1938 Yale Younger Poets prize and is best known as the second wife of the writer [C. S. Lewis](https://www.edgepedia.org/c-s-lewis).
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Born / died | April 18, 1915, New York City; July 13, 1960, of bone cancer[1](https://www.cslewis.org/resource/chronocsl/) |
| Education | High school at age 14; B.A. at Hunter College at 19 (English major, French Literature minor, honors); M.A. from Columbia University in three semesters[2](https://www.cslewisinstitute.org/resources/helen-joy-davidman-mrs-c-s-lewis-1915-1960-a-portrait/) |
| Major award | Yale Younger Poets prize, 1938, for *Letter to a Comrade*, chosen by Stephen Vincent Benét; published by Dial Press[3](https://christianhistoryinstitute.org/magazine/article/songs-battle-cries-and-sonnets) |
| Other books | Novel *Anya* (Macmillan, 1940); *War Poem of the United Nations* (Dial, 1943); *Smoke on the Mountain: An Interpretation of the Ten Commandments* (1954)[2](https://www.cslewisinstitute.org/resources/helen-joy-davidman-mrs-c-s-lewis-1915-1960-a-portrait/) • [4](https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/22962471-yet-one-more-spring) |
| Politics and religion | Member of the Communist Party (1938); left with her husband by 1946; converted to Christianity partly through Lewis's writings[5](https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/abigail-santamaria/joy-poet-seeker/) |
| First marriage | William Lindsay Gresham, married 1942, divorced 1954; sons David and Douglas[6](https://christianhistoryinstitute.org/magazine/article/romantic-and-realistic) |
| Marriage to Lewis | Civil marriage April 23, 1956 at the Oxford Registry Office; Church of England ceremony in December 1956 at Wingfield Hospital[1](https://www.cslewis.org/resource/chronocsl/) |
| Legacy | Lewis's *A Grief Observed* (1961) was written after her death; their story inspired *Shadowlands* on stage and screen[7](https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/mar/07/cs-lewis-lost-letters-reveal-his-grief-over-his-wifes-death) |
## Early life and education
Davidman was born on Manhattan's Lower East Side to Eastern European Jewish immigrants and raised in a middle-class Bronx neighborhood. Jeannette, her mother, taught kindergarten and had attended college, while her father, Joseph, completed a PhD and worked as a principal in the New York City public schools. The family, eager to assimilate, held Joy and her younger brother Howard to exacting standards.[6](https://christianhistoryinstitute.org/magazine/article/romantic-and-realistic)
She was a prodigy: she broke the scale on an elementary school [IQ test](https://www.edgepedia.org/iq-test), could read a Chopin score and play it at the piano without another glance, and memorized her Shakespeare lines after a single reading. She graduated from a demanding high school at fourteen, entered the then-tuition-free [Hunter College](https://www.edgepedia.org/hunter-college) at fifteen, and finished there at nineteen with honors in English and a French Literature minor. While teaching high school in her first year after college, she completed a Columbia master's degree in three semesters.[2](https://www.cslewisinstitute.org/resources/helen-joy-davidman-mrs-c-s-lewis-1915-1960-a-portrait/)
## Literary career
In January 1936 the Chicago magazine *[Poetry](https://www.edgepedia.org/poetry-magazine)*, edited by Harriet Monroe, bought several of her poems; Monroe published more and made her a reader and editor, and Davidman left teaching after one year to write full time.[2](https://www.cslewisinstitute.org/resources/helen-joy-davidman-mrs-c-s-lewis-1915-1960-a-portrait/) At twenty-three she won the Yale Younger Poets competition: judge Stephen Vincent Benét named her 1938 recipient for *Letter to a Comrade*, a manuscript of primarily political verse rooted in the [Spanish Civil War](https://www.edgepedia.org/spanish-civil-war), and his foreword hailed her as the voice of a generation.[3](https://christianhistoryinstitute.org/magazine/article/songs-battle-cries-and-sonnets) The following year she received the Russell Loines Award.[8](https://exploringcslewis.com/joy-davidman/)
Macmillan published her first novel, *Anya*, a Russian peasant story drawing on her mother's tales of the old country, in 1940, and it was well received.[2](https://www.cslewisinstitute.org/resources/helen-joy-davidman-mrs-c-s-lewis-1915-1960-a-portrait/) • [3](https://christianhistoryinstitute.org/magazine/article/songs-battle-cries-and-sonnets) She edited *War Poem of the United Nations* (Dial, 1943) and spent four summers at the MacDowell Colony in [New Hampshire](https://www.edgepedia.org/new-hampshire).[2](https://www.cslewisinstitute.org/resources/helen-joy-davidman-mrs-c-s-lewis-1915-1960-a-portrait/) She also spent a six-month stint in Hollywood in MGM's Young Screen Writers program, with little success.[6](https://christianhistoryinstitute.org/magazine/article/romantic-and-realistic) The last book she saw to print in her lifetime was *Smoke on the Mountain: An Interpretation of the Ten Commandments* (1954), a Lewis-inspired theological work for which Lewis wrote a foreword and helped her hone some ideas.[3](https://christianhistoryinstitute.org/magazine/article/songs-battle-cries-and-sonnets)
## Politics and religious search
Davidman joined the Communist Party of the United States of America in 1938, seeking a community of like-minded people. She wrote for the Marxist journal *New Masses*, joined its editorial staff, and taught poetry at the Jefferson School, a Marxist adult education institute.[5](https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/abigail-santamaria/joy-poet-seeker/) • [6](https://christianhistoryinstitute.org/magazine/article/romantic-and-realistic) Disillusionment with Marxism came after the Hitler–Stalin pact; by 1946 she and her husband had given up their party membership.[5](https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/abigail-santamaria/joy-poet-seeker/)
Her religious search then moved through several stages: an intention to "become a good Jew," an enthusiastic embrace of [L. Ron Hubbard](https://www.edgepedia.org/l-ron-hubbard)'s Dianetics, and finally Christianity, which she found compelling in Lewis's writings.[5](https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/abigail-santamaria/joy-poet-seeker/) During a personal crisis, with her marriage strained by Gresham's alcoholism and infidelities, she found herself praying and did not know what to make of it; she wrote to Lewis to ask, and a correspondence began.[9](https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/religion/article/77838-the-woman-beside-c-s-lewis-pw-talks-with-patti-callahan-henry.html)
## Marriage to C. S. Lewis
Davidman, by then a fan and poet living in New York state, began writing to Lewis in 1950.[7](https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/mar/07/cs-lewis-lost-letters-reveal-his-grief-over-his-wifes-death) They met in September 1952.[1](https://www.cslewis.org/resource/chronocsl/) When her marriage ended in divorce in 1954, she moved to England with her two sons.[6](https://christianhistoryinstitute.org/magazine/article/romantic-and-realistic) • [10](https://loc.ignatius.com/looking-for-the-king/cs-lewis.htm) On April 23, 1956 Lewis entered a civil marriage with her at the Oxford Registry Office to give her British citizenship and prevent her threatened deportation; in December 1956, with her death thought to be imminent, a bedside marriage according to the rites of the [Church of England](https://www.edgepedia.org/church-of-england) was performed at Wingfield Hospital. Lewis sought the sacramental marriage because, in his view, the civil ceremony had been a legal convenience rather than a real marriage.[1](https://www.cslewis.org/resource/chronocsl/) • [2](https://www.cslewisinstitute.org/resources/helen-joy-davidman-mrs-c-s-lewis-1915-1960-a-portrait/)
The marriage was complicated from the outside: many of Lewis's friends objected that a bachelor nearly sixty had married an American divorcée, Jewish, and the mother of two boys, and [J. R. R. Tolkien](https://www.edgepedia.org/j-r-r-tolkien) is said to have been "almost disgusted" on first meeting her.[2](https://www.cslewisinstitute.org/resources/helen-joy-davidman-mrs-c-s-lewis-1915-1960-a-portrait/) • [11](https://www.christianlis.org.uk/resources/book-reviews/biography/joy-davidman-poet-seeker-women-captivated-c-s-lewis/) Throughout 1957 Davidman experienced an extraordinary recovery from her cancer, and the marriage, by Lewis's own account, was deeply happy: "I never expected to have, in my sixties, the happiness that passed me by in my twenties."[1](https://www.cslewis.org/resource/chronocsl/) • [12](https://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/id/eprint/6054/1/398641.pdf)
## Influence on Lewis
Davidman was more than a bystander in Lewis's study. She typed out the complete typescript of his autobiography *Surprised by Joy*, and he came to trust her implicitly with his manuscripts.[13](https://www.christianitytoday.com/2016/02/finding-joy/) The novelist Patti Callahan Henry, author of a 2018 historical novel about Davidman, credits her with co-writing *Till We Have Faces* and helping edit *Surprised by Joy* and type parts of the Narnia books.[9](https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/religion/article/77838-the-woman-beside-c-s-lewis-pw-talks-with-patti-callahan-henry.html) Their correspondence began as a reader's questions and became, on Lewis's side, spiritual mentoring through the trials of her first marriage and divorce.[14](https://christianscholars.com/out-of-my-bone-the-letters-of-joy-davidman/)
## Death and legacy
Davidman died of bone cancer on July 13, 1960, after roughly four years of marriage.[1](https://www.cslewis.org/resource/chronocsl/) • [12](https://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/id/eprint/6054/1/398641.pdf) Lewis's raw account of mourning, *[A Grief Observed](https://www.edgepedia.org/a-grief-observed)* (1961), written after her death, records both his anguish and his esteem: her mind, he wrote, was "lithe and quick and muscular as a leopard," and she was "a soul straight, bright, and tempered like a sword. But not a perfected saint."[7](https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/mar/07/cs-lewis-lost-letters-reveal-his-grief-over-his-wifes-death) • [15](https://lithub.com/finding-joy/) Letters he wrote in the final months of his own life in 1963 show his grief over her remained raw.[7](https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/mar/07/cs-lewis-lost-letters-reveal-his-grief-over-his-wifes-death)
Their story reached a wide public through *Shadowlands*, first a 1985 television production and stage play, then the 1993 film starring [Anthony Hopkins](https://www.edgepedia.org/anthony-hopkins) and [Debra Winger](https://www.edgepedia.org/debra-winger), whose Oscar-nominated performance fixed the image of Davidman as the feisty Bronx divorcée who captivated the Oxford don.[7](https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/mar/07/cs-lewis-lost-letters-reveal-his-grief-over-his-wifes-death) • [15](https://lithub.com/finding-joy/) Biographers have since worked to restore the fuller record of her own literary career: Lyle W. Dorsett, professor of history at Wheaton College, published the first biography, *And God Came In* (1983),[16](https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/a/lyle-w-dorsett-2/and-god-came-in-the-extraordinary-story-of-joy-/) and Abigail Santamaria's *Joy: Poet, Seeker, and the Woman Who Captivated C. S. Lewis* (2015), drawing on unpublished family papers, and Don W. King's critical study *Yet One More Spring* (2015) present her as a writer in her own right rather than only as Lewis's wife.[5](https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/abigail-santamaria/joy-poet-seeker/) • [17](https://digitalcommons.georgefox.edu/cslewisjournal/vol10/iss1/29/) As her son's generation of readers learned through King's edition of her poems, her long-out-of-print *Letter to a Comrade* and a body of work including 45 love sonnets to Lewis solidified her poetic reputation after her death.[18](https://journals.wheaton.edu/public/journals/4/pdfs/Vol32_Book-Reviews-web.pdf)
## References
1. [C.S. Lewis Foundation, The Life of C.S. Lewis Timeline](https://www.cslewis.org/resource/chronocsl/)
2. [Lyle Dorsett, "Helen Joy Davidman (Mrs. C.S. Lewis) 1915–1960: A Portrait," C.S. Lewis Institute](https://www.cslewisinstitute.org/resources/helen-joy-davidman-mrs-c-s-lewis-1915-1960-a-portrait/)
3. ["Songs, battle cries, and sonnets," Christian History Magazine](https://christianhistoryinstitute.org/magazine/article/songs-battle-cries-and-sonnets)
4. [Yet One More Spring: A Critical Study of Joy Davidman (Goodreads entry)](https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/22962471-yet-one-more-spring)
5. [Kirkus Reviews, review of *Joy* by Abigail Santamaria](https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/abigail-santamaria/joy-poet-seeker/)
6. ["Romantic and realistic," Christian History Magazine](https://christianhistoryinstitute.org/magazine/article/romantic-and-realistic)
7. [Dalya Alberge, "CS Lewis's lost letters reveal how wife's death tested his faith," The Guardian, March 7, 2020](https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/mar/07/cs-lewis-lost-letters-reveal-his-grief-over-his-wifes-death)
8. ["Joy Davidman," Exploring CS Lewis](https://exploringcslewis.com/joy-davidman/)
9. [Emma Wenner, "The Woman Beside C.S. Lewis: PW Talks with Patti Callahan Henry," Publishers Weekly](https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/religion/article/77838-the-woman-beside-c-s-lewis-pw-talks-with-patti-callahan-henry.html)
10. [Looking for the King / C.S. Lewis, Ignatius Press](https://loc.ignatius.com/looking-for-the-king/cs-lewis.htm)
11. [Graham Hedges, "Joy Davidman: Poet, Seeker," Christians in Library and Information Services](https://www.christianlis.org.uk/resources/book-reviews/biography/joy-davidman-poet-seeker-women-captivated-c-s-lewis/)
12. ["The most important event of the next few years was surely his marriage to Joy Davidman Gresham" (thesis excerpt, White Rose eTheses)](https://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/id/eprint/6054/1/398641.pdf)
13. [Don W. King, "Finding Joy," Christianity Today / Books & Culture](https://www.christianitytoday.com/2016/02/finding-joy/)
14. [Christian Scholar's Review, review of *Out of My Bone: The Letters of Joy Davidman*](https://christianscholars.com/out-of-my-bone-the-letters-of-joy-davidman/)
15. [Abigail Santamaria, "Finding Joy," Literary Hub](https://lithub.com/finding-joy/)
16. [Kirkus Reviews, review of *And God Came In* by Lyle W. Dorsett](https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/a/lyle-w-dorsett-2/and-god-came-in-the-extraordinary-story-of-joy-/)
17. [Kat Coffin, review of *Joy* and *Yet One More Spring*, Sehnsucht: The C. S. Lewis Journal](https://digitalcommons.georgefox.edu/cslewisjournal/vol10/iss1/29/)
18. [Book Reviews, Wheaton College journal (review of Don W. King, *A Naked Tree*)](https://journals.wheaton.edu/public/journals/4/pdfs/Vol32_Book-Reviews-web.pdf)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Literature and written works › Writers and literary biographies › Poets › American and Canadian poets*
*Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Sep 30, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
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