David Downing

David C. Downing was the Co-Director and Co-holder of the Marion E. Wade Chair in Christian Thought (with his wife Crystal Downing) of the Marion E. Wade Center from 2018 to 2024 at Wheaton College in Illinois.

Downing grew up in Colorado, graduated from Westmont College, and earned his PhD from UCLA.

Downing has written four scholarly books on C.S. Lewis: Planets in Peril (1992), a critical study of the Ransom trilogy; The Most Reluctant Convert (2002), an examination of Lewis's journey to faith; Into the Wardrobe (2005), an in-depth overview of the Narnia Chronicles; Into the Region of Awe (2005), a study of how Lewis's wide reading in Christian mysticism enhanced his own faith and enriched his imaginative writing. Downing also provided a critical introduction and over 400 explanatory notes to the new edition of C.S. Lewis's The Pilgrim's Regress, originally published in 1933 and reissued by Eerdmans in the Wade Center Annotated Edition (2014).

Downing has edited two best-selling collections of Lewis’s thoughts on reading and writing, The Reading Life (2019) and C.S. Lewis on Writing (and Writers) (2022), both published by HarperOne.

Downing is also the author of Looking for the King, a historical novel in which two young Americans meet Lewis and Tolkien in Oxford in 1940. His blog may be found at cslewis.com. David and Crystal are now retired and live in Colorado.

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