Is This the 'Witch' Who Inspired Narnia? ; He Was a Shy Oxford Don. She Was His Landlady - Married and 25 Years His Senior. Now, As His Magical Narnia Story Hits the Big Screen, C.S. Lewis's Distinguished Biographer Reveals the Intriguing Story of Their Secret Affair

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THE STORY of a little boy who goes to 'hell' because a witch lures him with Turkish delight, but who finds redemption when the Lion lays down his life for him, touches something deep in C. S. Lewis's countless admirers - as it evidently did in the author himself.

However, if you're looking forward to the forthcoming epic film version of The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe, spare a word of inward thanks for one of the people who inspired it: the high- spirited, jolly, generous woman who, in the later stages of the unconventional life she shared with C. S. Lewis, was given the unfair status of wicked witch. That woman was called Janie Moore.

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Is This the 'Witch' Who Inspired Narnia? ; He Was a Shy Oxford Don. She Was His Landlady - Married and 25 Years His Senior. Now, As His Magical Narnia Story Hits the Big Screen, C.S. Lewis's Distinguished Biographer Reveals the Intriguing Story of Their Secret Affair

Indeed, this image was built up among Lewis's friends and peers to the point that Mrs Moore has become to many a monster-figure who tried to stop Lewis doing his work. (If that were so, Janie certainly did not succeed - most of his best books were written while he lived with her, including weighty academic tomes of unsurpassed brilliance which deserve fame much more than his derivative children's stories).

Certainly in terms of reputation, Janie is a long way from Joy Gresham, the woman who famously came into Lewis's life a great deal later and whose tragic early death formed the basis of the play and film Shadowlands. Mrs Moore's story, howe...

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