In the 1950s, Dr. Clyde S. Kilby, an English professor at WheatonCollege, began a correspondence with C.S. Lewis. Over the next severalyears, he had the opportunity to meet Lewis and eventually received 15letters from him. After C.S. Lewis's death in 1963, Dr. Kilby wasinspired to establish the "The C.S. Lewis Collection", a repositorythat eventually would include not only Lewis items, but also materialsfrom six other British writers whom Lewis either knew or whosignificantly influenced him: Owen Barfield, G.K. Chesterton, GeorgeMacDonald, Dorothy L. Sayers, J.R.R. Tolkien, and Charles Williams. Dr.Kilby's proposal to form a Lewis Collection was accepted by the WheatonCollege Library Committee in 1965, and he began the years of travel,relationship-building, and gathering of materials that would lay astrong foundation for the Collection.
In 1974, friends and family of Marion E. Wade, businessman andC.S. Lewis aficionado, established an endowment in his memory tosupport the Collection, which was then renamed "The Marion E. WadeCollection". In 1980, the Center published the first volume of itsacademic journal, SEVEN: An Anglo-American Literary Review. Dr. Kilby,Dr. Beatrice Batson, and Dr. Barbara Reynolds founded SEVEN to providea venue for critical assessment of the works of the seven Wade authors.Following Dr. Kilby's retirement in 1981, the Wade Center hasflourished under directors, Dr. Lyle W. Dorsett, (1983-1990) and Dr.Christopher W. Mitchell, (1993-present).
Over the years, as the collection grew, the Wade Center wasmoved between various locations on Wheaton College's campus, including Blanchard Halland Buswell Library. In 1998, with the generous help of Marion Wade'sdaughter Mary, the Wade Center began construction of a new limestonebuilding fashioned after the style of an English manor house, whichopened in 2001. This facility has made it possible to serve more than12,000 visitors a year, through the museum, the reading room,discussion groups, and speaking engagement.
The Wade Center houses more the 15,000 volumes, manuscript letters, artwork and audio-visual materials. The museum displays the Lewis family wardrobe, Tolkein's writing desk, and Pauline Baynes' original mape of Narnia. |