Sheldon Vanauken
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Sheldon Vanauken (August 4, 1914–October 18, 1996) is an American author, best known for his autobiographical book A Severe Mercy (1977), which recounts his and his wife's friendship with C.S. Lewis, their conversion to Christianity and dealing with tragedy. He published a sequel, Under the Mercy in 1985.
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[edit] Early life
Vanauken was born Frank Sheldon Vanauken in DeKalb County, Indiana, the elder of two sons of a wealthy attorney, Glenn Vanauken, and his wife Grace (Hanselman) Vanauken. He earned degrees from Wabash College, Yale, and Oxford. While at college, he dropped the "Frank" from his name. In later life, he was known to friends simply as "Van".
[edit] Marriage and religious conversion
In his junior year at Wabash College, Van met Jean "Davy" Palmer Davis. She was born in New Jersey in 1915 and was the daughter of the Rev. Staley Franklin Davis, a well-known Methodist minister, and his wife Helen (Fredricks) Davis. Davy's father died when she was not yet fifteen, and soon after, she became pregnant by an unknown man. She gave the baby girl, whom she called Marion, up for adoption but never forgot her.
Van and Davy fell deeply in love and made a vow they called the "Shining Barrier". In brief, they promised to share everything in life, including all their interests, friends, and work, in order to tie themselves so closely together that nothing could ever separate them. Their devotion to this idea was so complete that they decided never to have children, as they felt that motherhood would be an experience which could not be shared equally. Both were atheists at this time.
They were married secretly in the autumn of 1937, ten months after they met, and managed to keep their vow of complete togetherness for several years. However, Davy became a devout Anglican Christian while Van was studying at Oxford in the early 1950s, partly owing to the friendship and influence of C. S. Lewis, who was teaching there at the time. Van followed her, but with less conviction, and even with some resentment.
After Oxford, the Vanaukens returned to Lynchburg College, Virginia, where Van taught history and literature. Soon after, Davy contracted a virus which attacked her liver. Tragically, she died in 1955. A great part of A Severe Mercy concerns how Van came to grips with losing his beloved young wife with the help of his increasing faith and his correspondence with Lewis. He later called the "Shining Barrier" a "pagan love, invaded by Christ." He never remarried, and eventually converted to Catholicism in 1981.
[edit] Later life
Many years after Davy's death. Vanauken went looking for the daughter Davy had given up for adoption as a young girl. The story of his search and how it affected his beliefs is related in The Little Lost Marion and Other Mercies, which was written shortly before his death.
Van continued to teach at Lynchburg College to the end of his career. He converted to Roman Catholicism in 1981. He was a contributing editor of the New Oxford Review and a frequent contributor to Crisis magazine, as well as to other periodicals and newspapers.
Sheldon Vanauken died of cancer on October 18, 1996. His ashes were scattered in the churchyard of St. Stephen's Episcopal Church in Forest, Virginia, as those of his wife Davy had been forty years previously.
[edit] Works
- A Severe Mercy (1977)
- Gateway to Heaven (novel, 1980)
- Under the Mercy (1985)
- The Glittering Illusion: English Sympathy for the Southern Confederacy (1985)
- Mercies: Collected Poems (1988)
- The Little Lost Marion and Other Mercies (1996)
