What Are Magic and Myth Good For? Exploring William Lindsay Gresham’s Memories from Oz

While it is popular to see Joy Davidman’s ex-husband, William Lindsay Gresham, as irrelevant to Inklings discussions, various scholars have challenged the reductive Shadowlands portrait and discovered surprising insights into his life and work. ‘Scarecrow to the Rescue’, an article that Gresham contributed to The Baum Bugle about his marriage ending, provides compelling details about his perspective on his divorce. Furthermore, the article offers unexpected details about how he viewed myth and its place in fantasy literature. Read alongside recent discoveries about how well he read the Inklings’ fiction, ‘Scarecrow to the Rescue’ shows how close Gresham came to the four major Inklings’ concept of mythopoeia, yet how his conclusions about myth and religion ultimately took a non-theistic direction.