Unpublished Nonfiction Book by C.S. Lewis?

According to Texas State University, C.S. Lewis and his friend J.R.R. Tolkien were planning to co-author a nonfiction book entitled Language and Human Nature.  The book was set to be released in 1950, but never was.  This lead scholars to believe that the book was never even written, until now.  Steven Beebe, Regents’ Professor and Chair of the Texas State Department of Communication Studies, discovered an old, tattered notebook containing the first pages of the unpublished book.  At the time, the notebook was intriguing, but not until recently did he discover, after doing additional research, that the notebook held the first pages of the unpublished book.

Among the pages of the nonfiction book were found early fragments of The Magician’s Nephew and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.

The partial book manuscript Beebe found was in a small notebook on which Lewis had written the word “Scraps.” Included in the tattered notebook are early fragments of two Narnia Chronicles, The Magician’s Nephew and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader along with unpublished ideas about a variety of topics.

Beebe discovered the book fragment by turning the little notebook upside down and reading from back to front.

“I was so surprised to find Lewis writing about language and meaning, using examples and illustrations not found in any of his published work,” said Beebe. “I knew I had discovered something interesting.”

You can read the whole story here.