Clive Staples Lewis was born on November 29, 1898, in Belfast, Ireland, son of Albert James and Flora Augusta (Hamilton) Lewis. As a young child, Lewis decided that he wanted to be called "Jack," perhaps taking the name from a friend's dog. He was known as "Jack" to his friends throughout the rest of his life. On April 21, 1905, Lewis and his family moved to a large house named "Little Lea." This house was oddly designed, with the interior walls not matching the exterior walls, so that there were numerous nooks where Lewis and his older brother could get between the walls.

In these hidden places, they would play games. The house had rooms that were unused, and in these rooms Lewis would sit with a stack of sandwiches and a stack of books and spend a day working through them. Little Lea became the model for...