C.S. Lewis Archives - The Owen Barfield Literary Estate

For Christmas: The Silver Trumpet on its 100th Anniversary

December 4, 2025

In November 2024, I wrote on this blog about what was then the planned publication in 2025 of a new edition of Owen Barfield’s fairy-tale, The Silver Trumpet. Specifically I noted that it would be published by the Barfield Press on the 100th anniversary of its first publication. That gave rise, as I wrote, to a particular curiosity:

I had been wondering recently precisely when in 1925 the book was published by Faber & Gwyer, the predecessor of the publishing house still in existence, Faber & Faber.

Cracking the Coded Message in Owen Barfield’s Copy of The Allegory of Love

September 3, 2022

Among the invaluable Inklings books and memorabilia shown to me by Walter Hooper during my visit to his flat on July 22, 2015 was a first edition copy of The Allegory of Love (1936), C.S. Lewis’s own presentation copy to Owen Barfield, later given to Walter by Owen. What made it so interesting was not just its provenance, but more so its inscription on the dedication page encoded in a runic cipher.

Was Owen Barfield a Christian?

August 31, 2021

Even as recently as this year (2021) there has been a well-enough known C.S. Lewis commentator who wrongly states that Owen was “not a Christian.” This is not only factually incorrect, but also quite bizarre. I really feel that I must set the record straight.