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Lewis wrote comparing his childhood stories to his later Narnia books: "Animal land had nothing to do with Narnia except the anthropomorphic beasts. Animal land, by its whole quality, excluded the least hint of wonder." However, he also commented that "in mapping and chronicling Animal-Land I was training myself to be a novelist."

Lewis actually considered doing the illustrations for the Narnia books himself but decided he had neither the ability nor the time. Instead, he chose a young artist, Pauline Baynes, who had illustrated J. R. R. Tolkien's story Farmer Giles of Ham in 1948. He was never fully satisfied with Baynes's drawings of children and animals, though in his remarks to her he was full of praise where praise was due. "She can't draw lions," he told George Sayer, "but she is so good and beautiful and sensitive that I can't tell her this." When The Last Battle won the Carnegie Medal for the best children's book of 1956, Baynes wrote to Lewis to congratulate him. He wrote back, "Is it not rather our Medal?"

In 1933, Lewis wrote to his friend Arthur Greeves: "You will be surprised to hear that I have been to the cinema again! Don't be alarmed, it will not become a habit." Despite his protestation, he did occasionally go to the movies. The film King Kong evoked mixed reactions: "I thought parts of 'King Kong' (especially where the natives make a stand after he's broken the gate) magnificent," he commented to a fellow author, "but the New York parts contemptible."

In 1955, C. S. Lewis was invited to meet Billy Graham, who was leading a mission sponsored by the Cambridge

Inter-Collegiate Christian Union. Graham remembers the encounter this way: "I found him to be not only intelligent and witty but also gentle and gracious; he seemed genuinely interested in our [mission] meetings. 'You know,' he said as we parted, 'you have many critics, but I have never met one of your critics who knows you personally.'"

When Lewis sent his book The Allegory of Love to Oxford's Clarendon Press, it was given to Charles Williams to review. At that time Williams and Lewis did not know one another, but Lewis had just read Williams's novel The Place of the Lion. Williams was writing a letter to Lewis when he received a letter from Lewis praising his novel. Williams's letter to Lewis said that Allegory of Love was "practically the only one I have ever come across since Dante that showed the slightest understanding of what this peculiar identity of love and religion means."

Many people who read Lewis's first book after his conversion, The Pilgrim's Regress, assumed he was a Catholic, and, in fact, the second edition was published by a Catholic publisher. Lewis marveled in 1940 that "the two people whose conversion had something to do with me became Papists!" (Dom Bede Griffiths and George Sayer). This popularity among and influence on Catholics continued throughout Lewis's life and to the present day. Pope John Paul II spoke of The Four Loves as one of his favorite books.

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