ABSTRACT
Lewis’ career concluded, as it had started, with creation and controversy. In his final years he completed the vast Human Age trilogy, which began with The Childermass, and became involved in a row—provoked by William Roberts—about the Vorticism exhibition at the Tate. He continued to attract new friends and admirers—Michael Ayrton, Russell Kirk, Walter Michel, Hugh Kenner and D. G. Bridson—who tolerated his sudden changes from courtesy to rudeness. The extraordinary circumstances that allowed Lewis to complete The Human Age began in April 1951 when D. G. Bridson, a producer on the BBC who had written four lukewarm reviews of Lewis’ books in the 1930s but was a great admirer of his earlier work, told Lewis that he wished to adapt The Childermass for dramatization on the BBC.
