SEVEN: An Anglo-American Literary Review

George MacDonald
G K Chesterton
C S Lewis
J R R Tolkien
Charles Williams
Dorothy L Sayers
Owen Barfield

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In 1965, because of the growing interest in these seven British authors, Dr. Clyde S Kilby of Wheaton College conceived the idea of starting a collection. Beginning with a small number of books and letters by C S Lewis, the Marion E Wade Center now holds thousands of manuscripts, letters, first editions and other primary material.

Fifteen years later, in 1980, Dr Barbara Reynolds, Dr Kilby and Dr Beatrice Batson founded SEVEN: An Anglo-American Literary Review. Born out of the need and opportunity for discussion and balanced assessment of these writers, SEVEN is intended for both the general and specialised reader.

From the Managing Editor:

It is a privilege to serve this journal and the work of the seven authors which it represents. Thinkers, novellists, creators of new worlds, poets, dramatists, Christian believers, innovators in all they undertook, they set a high standard of intellectual integrity and imaginative achievement. We have still much to learn from them and about them. Their influence, severally and in combination, continues to be far-reaching and an inspiration to all who value creative excellence.

Barbara Reynolds

"SEVEN will be of enormous interest to anyone who cares about English literature and, particularly, about fine literature which is also Christian."
Madeleine L'Engle, Writer and Lecturer
"The seven writers highlighted in this journal were by no means artists for art's sake: they were idea-oriented, involved always with perennial matters. Their deepest concerns are still our concerns, and SEVEN promises to conduct an interdisciplinary dialogue of major significance."
Modern Language Review

The Wade Center now has its own page all about SEVEN

Current Issue - Volume 24

Worshipping the Hero: MacDonald and Carlyle’s Early Novels

David Robb compares and contrasts the “great men” who populate MacDonald’s realistic novels with the concept of the “Great Man” as defined by the influential Victorian writer, Thomas Carlyle.

Contemplating C.S. Lewis’s Epistemology

Norbert Feinendegen suggests that while Lewis and Barfield’s “Great War” correspondence did influence Lewis’s Christian conversion, it was for different reasons than have been assumed by scholars heretofore, due to Barfield’s misunderstanding of Lewis’s use of the key terms “enjoyment” and “contemplation”.

“Seeking But To Do Thee Grace”: Dorothy L. Sayers’s Illustrated Religious Cards

Laura Simmons uses unpublished correspondence of Sayers to explore the author’s process of collaboration with her publisher and artists in the creation of several religious cards published late in Sayers’s life.

Didactic Pleasures: Learning in C.S. Lewis’s Narnia

Paul Tankard examines the overtly didactic qualities in the Narnian Chronicles, and explains the background and value in Lewis’s instructive approach, while clarifying that the Christian resonances in the series are not among the material that is presented didactically.

Feminist Nay-Sayers: Are Women Human?

Crystal Downing contextualizes Dorothy L. Sayers’s essays “Are Women Human?” and “The Human-Not-Quite-Human”, recently republished by Eerdmans, within the three “waves” of twentieth-century feminism.

Books Reviewed:

The Chronicles of Narnia and Philosophy: The Lion, The Witch, and the Worldview Ed. by Gregory Bassham and Jerry L. Walls
J.R.R. Tolkien’s Sanctifying Myth: Understanding Middle-earth by Bradley J. Birzer
Inside Narnia: A Guide to Exploring The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by Devin Brown
Revisiting Narnia: Fantasy, Myth and Religion in C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles Ed. by Shanna Caughey
Ents, Elves, and Eriador: The Environmental Vision of J.R.R. Tolkien by Matthew Dickerson and Jonathan Evans
Into the Region of Awe: Mysticism in C.S. Lewis by David C. Downing
Into the Wardrobe: C.S. Lewis and the Narnia Chronicles by David C. Downing
Not a Tame Lion by Bruce Edwards
C.S. Lewis - Mythe, raison ardente : Imagination et réalité selon C.S. Lewis by Irène Fernandez
Interrupted Music: The Making of Tolkien’s Mythology by Verlyn Flieger
Irrigating Deserts: C.S. Lewis on Education by Joel Heck
The World of the Rings by Jared Lobdell
Beyond the Shadowlands: C.S. Lewis on Heaven and Hell by Wayne Martindale
The Lord of the Rings: Popular Culture in Global Context Ed. by Ernest Mathijs
Unsung Heroes of The Lord of the Rings: From the Page to the Screen by Lynnette R. Porter
The Way Into Narnia: A Reader’s Guide by Peter J. Schakel
In Search of Salt. A Perennial Comparison of C.S. Lewis and Owen Barfield by Raymond P. Tripp Jr.
C.S. Lewis & Narnia for Dummies by Richard Wagner
The Heart of The Chronicles of Narnia: Knowing God Here by Finding Him There by Thomas Williams
The Gospel According to Tolkien: Visions of the Kingdom in Middle-earth by Ralph C. Wood

Ordering Information

(including back issues)

Prices per volume, including postage and handling:

In the USA Other countries
Surface post Other countries
Air mail

$14.50 each US$22.50 each US$33.50 each

In the USA	Other countries Surface post	Other countries Air mail
$14.50 each	US$22.50 each	US$33.50 each

Volumes are also available for sale in person at the Wade Center for US$12.50.

Payment should be sent with order, by US$ or £ Sterling cheque (note: for payment in Sterling, please check the price with the Wade first), to:

  The Marion E Wade Center
  Wheaton College
  Wheaton
  IL 60187-5593
  U S A

The Center can also take credit cards, which for overseas customers may be the most convenient method of payment due to the rapid fluctuations in the exchange rate. For more details, please see the Center's own web site here.