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non fiction works
The Descent of the Dove: a short history of the Holy Spirit in the Church (1939)
The Figure of Beatrice: A Study in Dante (1943)
Flecker of Dean Close (1946)
The Forgiveness of Sins (1942)
He Came Down From Heaven (1938)
The Image of the City and Other Essays (1958)
James I (1934)
Queen Elizabeth (1936)
Rochester (1935)
A Short Life of Shakespeare: with the Sources (1933)
The English Poetic Mind (1932)
Outlines of Romantic Theology: Religion and Love in Dante (1930)
Poetry At Present (1930)
Witchcraft (1941)
fiction
All Hallows' Eve (1945)
Descent Into Hell (1937)
The Greater Trumps (1932)
Many Dimensions (1931)
The Place of the Lion (1931)
Shadows Of Ecstasy (1933)
War in Heaven (1930)
poetry
Arthurian Torso Containing the Posthumous Fragment of The Figure of Arthur (1948)
A Book of Victorian Narrative Verse (1927)
Divorce (1920)
The New Book of English Verse (1935)
Poems of Conformity (1917)
The Region of the Summer Stars (1944)
The Silver Stair (1912)
Taliessin through Logres (1938)
plays
The House of the Octopus (1945)
Judgement at Chelmsford (1939)
The Masque of the Manuscript (1927)
A Masque of Perusal (1929)
A Myth of Shakespeare (1928)
Seed of Adam and other plays (1948)
Thomas Cranmer of Canterbury (1936)
Three Plays (1931)
gallery
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basic biography
Charles Walter Stansby Williams was born September 20, 1886 in London. He went to school at St. Albans and later attended University College in London.
In 1905 he got a job at the Oxford UP, starting at the bottom but later becoming the literary adviser in a publisher's office. Seven years later his first book came out, and then he began lectures. He enthralled many and soon began a prolific writing career including poetry, criticism (mostly of Dante), theology, plays, and fantasy novels.
He married Florence Conway in 1917, she was from St. Albans, and it is safe to assume they met whilst he was at school or on a subsiquent return visit. He adored her, she was almost his Beatrice. He dubbed her 'Michal' after King David's first wife. There is little known about her, but they wrote to each other frequently and ardently even in later years.
In religion he was a unique sort of Christian, he belonged to the Church of England, but admired the mystical traditions of the Roman Catholic Church. He challenged much of the standard beliefs, not willing to take things on face value but looking deeper.
He valued emotion as much as intellect, but never the baser. It is difficult to explain, you need to read his work to even begin to understand it. His intense study of the relationship between the various modes of romantic love and the 'affirmation of images' versis a balance of scepticism and its connections between Christ and the Church is unprecidented.
In 1943 he received an honourary degree of MA from Oxford, due to his lectures during the war years. Two years later, May 19 1945 Charles Williams died. His wife died in 1970, and his only child, Michael, in 2000. They are buried in Holywell Cemetary in Oxford.
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