That Hideous Strength

The third of the Ransom novels, published by John Lane at The Bodley Head in London in 1945, with the subtitle A Modern Fairy-Tale for Grown-Ups. Unlike its predecessors it is set on Earth, in the English university town of Edgestow. Mark Studdock, a young sociologist eager to belong to an inner circle, is drawn into the National Institute of Co-ordinated Experiments, which aims to remake humanity by conditioning and science; his wife Jane, troubled by prophetic dreams, finds her way to a small community at St Anne's gathered around Ransom. The struggle draws in the Arthurian legend and the waking of Merlin, and ends with the overthrow of the Institute. Lewis's preface says the story makes the same point as The Abolition of Man (1943). The book shows the influence of his friend Charles Williams, and an abridged edition appeared under the title The Tortured Planet.