The cover of Deeper Heaven

A Reader’s Guide to C. S. Lewis’s Ransom Trilogy

Deeper Heaven

What does Christ have to do with Jupiter? Everything.

Christiana Hale · Foreword by Douglas Wilson

A guide and companion through the medieval cosmology, ancient myth and critique of modern philosophy that make up Lewis’s much-neglected “Space Trilogy.”

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“Christiana Hale has done C. S. Lewis’s readers a great service.”
Dr. Michael Ward · author of Planet Narnia
“A genuinely magnificent book on one of the most important subjects in the world.”
Eric Metaxas · The Eric Metaxas Show
“You will come away from it the wiser.”
Douglas Wilson · from the Foreword
About the book

The medieval model of the cosmos

C. S. Lewis’s Ransom Trilogy, better known as “the Space Trilogy,” is a much-neglected and yet critically important part of Lewis’s works. It has captivated and bewildered readers since its publication, and though hundreds of books about Lewis have been written, few seek to navigate the maze that is Lewis’s “space-travel story.” These books are a distillation in novel form of one of Lewis’s favorite subjects, a subject whose melody is woven into almost everything that Lewis ever wrote: the medieval model of the cosmos.

Deeper Heaven is a guide and companion through the magical web of medieval cosmology, ancient myth, and critique of modern philosophies that makes up the oft-maligned “Space Trilogy.” A student and teacher of literature and history herself, Christiana Hale will walk you through the Trilogy one step at a time, with eyes fixed where Lewis himself fixed his: on Deep Heaven and beyond. In the process, many questions will be answered: What does Christ have to do with Jupiter? Why does Lewis care so much about the medieval conception of the heavens? Why should we? And, perhaps the most puzzling question of all: why is Merlin in That Hideous Strength?

The guide

A Beatrice to your Dante

The Ransom Trilogy is woven from the medieval picture of the heavens: seven planets with personalities, a silent Earth, angels in the stars. Deeper Heaven hands you that map, then reads the three novels with it, chapter by chapter.

Part I · chapters 4–13

Out of the Silent Planet

Malacandra · Mars

Ransom is kidnapped to Mars and learns that “space” is a libel on the heavens. Dante, H. G. Wells, the hnau, and the Martial spirit of courage.

Part II · chapters 14–23

Perelandra

Perelandra · Venus

An unfallen world, a Green Lady, and a temptation that must be answered in argument and then in blows. Love, plenitude, and true myth.

Part III · chapters 24–33

That Hideous Strength

Thulcandra · Jupiter

The N.I.C.E., St. Anne’s, Merlin, and a marriage. Why the Jovial king comes down to the Silent Planet, and what the women of the West are for.

Table of contents

35 chapters · 3 appendices · the Field of Arbol map
  1. MapA Map of the Ransom Trilogy Cosmology
  2. ForewordBy Douglas Wilson
  3. What is this book?
  4. Note on how to use this book
  5. Introduction
  6. Chapter 1Mapping the Universe: What is the Medieval Cosmos?
  7. Chapter 2Kindly Enclyning: The Influence and Personality of the Planets
  8. Chapter 3Whatness & Whichness: Donegality and Atmosphere
  9. Part I · Out of the Silent Planet
  10. SummaryOut of the Silent Planet
  11. Chapter 4The Pedestrian & the Pilgrim: Dante’s Influence
  12. Chapter 5“By Jove!”: Lewis’s Use of Language
Christiana (Pinkall) Hale
The author

Christiana (Pinkall) Hale

Christiana Hale (New Saint Andrews College, BA ’15, MA ’17) teaches Latin and literature at Logos School in Moscow, Idaho, and lectures in writing at New Saint Andrews. She is an assistant editor of Sehnsucht: The C. S. Lewis Journal and wrote the chapter on Perelandra in Life on the Silent Planet (Davenant Press). Deeper Heaven is her first book; a reader’s guide to Till We Have Faces is forthcoming.

Publishing information

Author
Christiana Hale
Foreword
Douglas Wilson
Format
Paperback, 5.5 × 8.5 in · 412 pages
eBook
Free in the Roman Roads app with the paperback, or on its own
Audiobook
Read by Tim Stephenson, 7 h 22 min
Cover and illustrations
Joey Nance
ISBN
978-1-944482-56-5

Interviews, the map of the Field of Arbol, the app series with Joe Carlson, and three chapters free: the Deeper Heaven page

Deeper Heaven

$26.95 · Print edition includes the eBook