Douglas Gresham has been a farmer, film producer, private detective, radio announcer, counselor, and writer. Being the stepson of the well-known author C.S. Lewis has provided Douglas with a very interesting life.
What can Christians learn from his life and work?
Douglas Gresham was born to Helen Joy Davidman Gresham and William “Bill” Lindsey Gresham in November 1945. Doug’s brother David Gresham was born a year earlier, in 1944. Douglas’s parents met in New York and were married in 1942. Both were intellectuals and writers interested in the arts and communism.
The marriage dissolved in the 1950s for various reasons, notably a worldview conflict. Davidman, a former atheist and communist, found faith sometime after a religious experience in 1946, becoming a Christian by 1948. Lyle Dorsett’s biography of Joy And God Came In observes that reading C.S. Lewis’s books played a key part in this spiritual journey, and initially, Bill seemed to be moving in the same direction. He professed to become and attended church with Joy, but after several years became interested in Dianetics and later Zen Buddhism, which made Joy question the authenticity of his faith.
Bill’s volatile behavior—alcoholism, abuse, numerous affairs, erratic behavior possibly caused by PTSD—created further problems. After stress-related health problems put Joy in the hospital, a doctor recommended she take a vacation. She traveled to England in 1952, visiting Lewis and his brother Warnie as part of his trip.
William wrote to Joy while she was in England, stating he wanted to marry her cousin, Renee Pierce. Though Joy tried to reconcile when she returned home, nothing changed. In 1954 the divorce was finalized, and Bill married Renee.
After the divorce, Joy moved with David and Douglas to England. Bill would visit his sons after Joy’s death in 1961, though Douglas writes in Lenten Lands that they were more or less estranged from him.
Bill Gresham died by suicide in 1962 after being diagnosed with cancer.
Joy had become aware of Lewis years before moving to England. Along with reading his books during her 1940s spiritual journey, her friend Chad Walsh encouraged her to write to Lewis. Their correspondence began in 1950.
During her 1952 trip, Joy met both of the Lewis for tea at the Eastgate Hotel in Oxford. Both men were delighted to meet their American friend, finding her witty, a great conversationist and writer.
The friendship between Lewis and Joy apparently turned to romantic love around 1953. Because of Lewis’ stoic Belfast Protestant upbringing, he was reluctant to express his feelings for Joy. Then in April 1956, Lewis legally married Joy to avoid her being deported from England—her visa renewal had been rejected, likely due to her 1930s Communist Party membership. The civil union allowed Joy and her sons to become British Citizens for the rest of their lives.
When Lewis learned in October 1956 that Joy was dying of bone cancer, he decided to marry her properly. An Anglican priest friend, Peter Bide, officiated the wedding at Joy’s hospital bedside.
After Bride officiated the wedding and said a prayer of healing for Joy, she went into remission for four years. Those few years were the best years of Lewis’s life and for Douglas. Douglas loved living at The Kilns in Headington, England, with Lewis, Joy, Warnie, and their gardener Fred Paxford—who inspired Puddleglum in Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia.
Although Douglas Gresham grew up with Christian values at the Kilns, neither his mother nor stepfather forced their beliefs on him. Lewis encouraged Douglas to ask philosophical questions and not simply believe a worldview that fits one’s cultural upbringing. Lewis.
Although Douglas knew quite a lot about Christianity during this time, it wasn’t until later that he came to commit his life to Christ. In interviews and lectures at colleges, churches, and seminaries, he has clearly distinguished between knowing about the Gospel of Christ and what it means to live out the agape love of Christ by grace.
After Lewis’s death, Douglas stayed in England with his mother’s friend Jean Wakeman. During this time, he met his future wife, Merrie Gresham. They were married in 1967. Merrie and Douglas left England to be farmers in Tasmania shortly afterward.
Merrie became a Christian during their time in Tasmania, and after a 1990 experience when Douglas tried to help someone and realized his own brokenness, he became a Christian too.
In 1993, Douglas and Merrie moved with their family to County Carlow, Ireland, to found Rathvinden House, a counseling center for victims of post-abortion syndrome. Over the next 13 years, they helped hundreds of people heal from intense wounds. In 2006, the Greshams moved to the Isle of Malta, where they currently reside.
After coming to know Christ, Dougkas truly understood with his heart and mind what his stepfather’s books were all about. Although he knew much about God, he was no longer a nominal Christian but a devout follower of Christ in the community of “Mere Christians.”
After Lewis died in 1963, his fellow Inklings A.C. Harwood and Owen Barfield became co-trustees for the Lewis Estate. Barfield passed the estate to the heirs, Douglas and David, in 1979.
Douglas became deeply involved in the estate, eventually transformed into the C.S. Lewis Company. His work promoting Lewis’ work has included presenting Focus on the Family Radio Theatre’s audio dramatization of the Chronicles of Narnia, and speaking at countless public events.
After years of supporting efforts to make movies based on the Chronicles of Narnia, he became the producer for The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe, released in December 2005. The film was followed by Prince Caspian in 2008 and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader in 2010.
To many fans’ disappointment, no further films were produced. Douglas sold the rights to Netflix in 2018. As of 2023, Netflix has announced plans for two Narnia films written and directed by Greta Gerwig.
Though Douglas has experienced great pain, he lived a good life to the glory of Christ.
Douglas has used his influence as Lewis’ stepson to help and encourage thousands worldwide to read Lewis and connected authors like George MacDonald. Two recent examples include endorsing David Jack’s Doric to English translations of George MacDonald’s novels and a video promotion for my book Surprised by Agape.
During his teenage years at the Kilns, David Gresham decided to follow Judaism. Douglas recalls Lewis made good on his claim that he would encourage the boys to find religion by finding kosher food and cooking equipment for David.
After Douglas moved to Tasmania, the brothers apparently went their separate ways. In 2005, Douglas said they hadn’t feuded, just taken different life directions and were in email contact.
David Gresham rarely spoke about his family’s legacy other than corresponding with Abigail Santamaria about rights to publish some of Joy’s letters. He had two children in the 1990s, and described himself in 2006 as “quite religious” but not following Judaism.
In 2020, Douglas stated that David attempted to hurt him many times when they were children, including once trying to set Douglas on fire with gasoline. He also reported that Joy’s brother, psychiatrist Howard Davidman, let David visit him in New York during their childhood. Howard later told Douglas he had diagnosed David with paranoid schizophrenia, but David had refused an offer of treatment.
David passed away on Christmas Day in 2014 in a psychiatric clinic on Christmas in Switzerland. Douglas stated that he wept for his brother after he died and lamented the estrangement over the years.
A good way of learning more about Douglas Gresham is his book Lenten Lands, published in 1988. The book is a firsthand account of Doug’s childhood in upstate New York, his complex relationship with his biological father, the love between Joy and Lewis, and how he dealt with the profound grief of three parental figures within five years. The book’s title comes from a poem Lewis wrote after Joy’s death. The poignant memoir is a great affirmation of hope and a fascinating read about Douglas’s life after he moved from England.
Through the legacy of his stepfather Lewis, Douglas has encouraged and inspired many artists worldwide to use their gifts for the glory of Christ.
In 2019 I had the opportunity of spending time one-on-one with Douglas when he was in South Carolina for a performance of The Horse and His Boy being performed by the Logos Theatre. He was kind and witty, and I marveled as he told me about memories of Joy, Lewis, Warnie, and living with them at The Kilns.
Photo Credit: © Getty Images/Kriangsak Koopattanakij
Justin Wiggins is an author who works and lives in the primitive, majestic, beautiful mountains of North Carolina. He graduated with his Bachelor's in English Literature, with a focus on C.S. Lewis studies, from Montreat College in May 2018. His first book was Surprised by Agape, published by Grant Hudson of Clarendon House Publications. His second book, Surprised By Myth, was co-written with Grant Hudson and published in 2021. Many of his recent books (Marty & Irene, Tír na nÓg, Celtic Twilight, Celtic Song, Ragnarok, Celtic Dawn) are published by Steve Cawte of Impspired.
Wiggins has also had poems and other short pieces published by Clarendon House Publications, Sehnsucht: The C.S. Lewis Journal, and Sweetycat Press. Justin has a great zeal for life, work, community, writing, literature, art, pubs, bookstores, coffee shops, and for England, Scotland, and Ireland.
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