Colin Duriez was born in Derbyshire on 19 July 1947.[1] He spent his early life in Long Eaton, Derbyshire, in a couple of new council estates near Portsmouth and six years in a mining village in South Wales, before moving to the West Midlands. After school he studied for two years at the University of Istanbul, Turkey, before completing his studies at the University of UlsterinColeraine, Northern Ireland where he read English and philosophy. After a career in editing and journalism in London, interspersed with some teaching,[citation needed] he migrated to Leicester in 1983 to work with a small publisher, IVP, as a commissioning editor. In 2002 he started his own business in Keswick, Cumbria, InWriting, devoted to writing, editorial services, and book acquisition for publishers.[2]
Duriez won the Clyde S. Kilby Award in 1994 for his research on the Inklings, the literary group that included J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis. He has been described as "the most useful scholar writing on Lewis today."[3] He has published many books on Christian literary figures, and has spoken to literary, academic and professional groups.[4] His television documentaries include A Quest for Meaning – Myth, Imagination & Faith in the Literature of J.R.R. Tolkien & C.S. Lewis.[5] He lives in Wallingford, Oxfordshire.[5]
Reception
Benjamin C. Parker, reviewing Duriez's Bedeviled: Lewis, Tolkien, and the Shadow of Evil, writes that the strengths of the book include its thorough connection of Lewis's writings to earlier literature on the subject, and his setting of his thesis about the Inklings in terms of 21st century events and literature. Parker finds the analysis of issues related to Christianity "profound", and states that the book is accessible both to academics and the general public, with the more scholarly details relegated to endnotes.[6]
Courtney Petrucci, reviewing The Oxford Inklings: Lewis, Tolkien, and Their Circle, writes that the book's "great strength" is "its effective use of other Inklings' writings to give the reader a sense for what the group was like and how its most prominent members [Lewis, Tolkien, Owen Barfield, and Charles Williams] were understood" by the less-famous members. Petrucci finds the book remarkable in succeeding in balancing the coverage, offering fresh "insights and perspectives", and bringing out the complicated ideas that the Inklings discussed while telling the basic story of the group.[7]
John E. McKinley, in his review of the biography Tolkien and C. S. Lewis: The Gift of Friendship and The Inklings Handbook: A Comprehensive Guide to the Lives, Thought and Writings of C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, Charles Williams, Owen Barfield and Their Friends, writes that these are "excellent resources" for readers new to Tolkien and Lewis, and useful too to "devoted reader[s]" of their "imaginative and provocative writings". The biography is in McKinley's view unique in showing how the friendship between the two writers stimulated and inspired both of them "to write Christian mythology and apologetics". He adds that Duriez shows that both men were opposed to the "mechanization" of the modern age; both took "delight in imagination"; and both "embrace[d] historic Christianity".[8]
Books
Literary works
1990 The C. S. Lewis Handbook (Monarch Publications/Baker Book House)[9]
1992 Tolkien and Middle-earth Handbook (Monarch Publications/Baker Book House/Angus & Robertson)
2000 The C.S. Lewis Encyclopedia (Crossway)
2001 (with David Porter) The Inklings Handbook (Azure/Chalice)
2001 Tolkien and the Lord of the Rings: A Guide to Middle Earth (Azure/Hidden Spring)
2006 The Poetic Bible (compiler) (SPCK)
2007 The Unauthorised Harry Potter Companion (Sutton)
2007 A Field Guide to Harry Potter
2008 A Field Guide to Narnia
2013 The A-Z of C.S. Lewis: An Encyclopedia of His Life, Thought and Writings (Lion Hudson)[3]
2015 (with Cindy Kiple) Bedeviled: Lewis, Tolkien and the Shadow of Evil (IVP Books)
Biography
2003 Tolkien and C.S. Lewis: The Gift of Friendship (HiddenSpring)
2005 The C.S. Lewis Chronicles (Darton Longman & Todd)
2013 C.S. Lewis, A biography of friendship (Lion Books)
2015 Francis Schaeffer: An Authentic Life (Crossway)
2015 The Oxford Inklings: Lewis, Tolkien and their Circle (Lion Books)[10]
2018 J.R.R. Tolkien: The Making of a Legend (Rydon)
2020 Dorothy Sayers (Lion Hudson)
History
2008 AD 33: The Year That Changed the World (History Press)
^Patterson, Nancy-Lou (Autumn 1992). "Very Small Pots". Mythlore. 18 (70): 46. Retrieved 15 November 2021. Perhaps the most useful contribution is the entry, "Literary Critic, C.S. Lewis as a," which sets his critical career in the context of the major movements and schools of critical thought not only in his lifetime but to the present: no small feat. Duriez's remarks, though compressed, are telling.
^Hurd, Crystal (Fall–Winter 2015). "The Oxford Inklings". Mythlore. 34 (127): 190–192. Retrieved 15 November 2021.
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