In this episode of The CS Lewis Podcast, Ruth Jackson is joined by Charlie Reeder, a recent Oxford graduate whose award-winning research explores the theme of longing in the work of CS Lewis. Drawing on his dissertation and a paper presented at the 2024 Undiscovered CS Lewis Conference, Charlie unpacks Lewis’s early poetry collection 'Spirits in Bondage' and its surprising connections to Lewis’s later Christian vision.

The conversation explores the idea of Sehnsucht that deep, aching desire for something beyond this world and how Lewis wrestled with it long before his conversion. From the Marion E. Wade Center archives to 'The Pilgrim’s Regress' and 'The Weight of Glory', this episode reveals how longing for the “hidden country” runs like a golden thread through Lewis’s life, faith, and imagination.

For Charlie's Substack: https://theoxfordreeder.substack.com/

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Released on 22 Dec 2025