"First the books I was reading turned against me. What I mean is - the ones I really liked all had this one thing in common - they were written by Christians. Very alarming. And then there were my friends - most of them turned out to be Christians too. Even worse. In fact, Christians seemed to pop up on every side. Really, a young atheist cannot guard his faith too carefully!"

-- C.S. Lewis

C.S. Lewis returned to Oxford after his discharge from the service, and was one of the few people of the century to win a triple first in Mods (Greek and Latin literature), Greats (Philosophy and Ancient history) and English literature. And, astonishingly, he did it amidst some turmoil.

During the summer of 1920, Mrs. Moore and her daughter Maureen rented a house in Oxford and Lewis moved in. According to some, Moore tended to treat Lewis more as a servant and depended upon him to do most of the chores.

"He led this kind of strange life, almost a life of drudgery really. He was running errands for her. He was getting things from the shops that she had forgotten. He endured more than most men would…than most people would," said Lewis biographer Brian Sibley.

The exact nature of the relationship between Lewis and Moore is the subject of some controversy among Lewis scholars. Lewis never spoke about the relationship and hid it from his father for some years. Some have connected it to the "enormous emotional episode" that Lewis refers to in "Surprised by Joy" but says he can't write about. His brother described the relationship as a "strange, self-imposed slavery."

Whatever it was, Lewis and Moore shared a home until 1950 when she was moved to the nursing home where she died in 1951.

After finishing his studies, Lewis began teaching at Magdalen College at Oxford in 1925 and remained there for 30 years.

It was at Oxford that Lewis began to make friends with a group of bright, engaging intellectuals who were also, for him, disturbingly Christian.

Thomas Howard, author of "C.S. Lewis: Man of Letters," said, "He didn't admire Christians and the thing that wrecked all that for him was that he met these incandescent minds at Oxford who were card-carrying Christian believers."

Between his books and his friends, and although he fought mightily against it, Lewis wrote, "At Oxford, in the spring term of 1929, at the age of 30, I finally gave in, and admitted that God was God.

"... Perhaps, that night, I was the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England."

Lewis' career as an author also began during this time as Lewis published two books of poetry, "Spirits in Bondage (1919)" and "Dymer (1926)," both under the pseudonym Clive Hamilton.