The Marion E. Wade Center [1] at Wheaton College is a special research collection of papers, books, and manuscripts from a variety of authors, mostly from the U.K.: C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, G.K. Chesterton, Dorothy L. Sayers, Charles Williams, Owen Barfield, and George MacDonald (as well as Lewis's wife, Joy Davidman). It was named after Marion E. Wade, founder of Servicemaster Corp.
The Wade Center serves primarily as a research center, attracting scholars from around the world. Click here [2] for more information on the materials available, which include every book written by the Wade authors, plus books, articles, and other materials about the various writers. For example, the Wade Center has the world's best collection of the writings of Dorothy L. Sayers, including 30,000 pages of letters and documents both published and unpublished. For some of the Wade authors, collections of family documents are also available.
The Center hosts special events related to its authors: meetings of scholarly societies, book discussions and classes, film-release celebrations, etc.
The Wade Center also publishes the journal VII: An Anglo-American Literary Review [3], spotlighting works by and about the Wade authors.
The center was found in 1965 by Clyde S. Kilby. In 2001 a new building was completed at the edge of the Wheaton College campus to house the Wade Center. Researchers benefit from an expanded reading room; there is a classroom space; and the exhibits area (changed regularly) has been enlarged from the previous space in the university library. C.S. Lewis's dining-room table no longer serves as desk space for visiting researchers, but has been moved into the exhibits area near the Wade's own Lewis wardrobe.
The small staff is headed by director Christopher W. Mitchell (Through the Wardrobe and into the Mind of C. S. Lewis, Feb 2009[4]) and Associate Director Marjorie Lamp Mead (A Reader's Guide Through the Wardrobe: Exploring C. S. Lewis's Classic Story [5]and A Reader's Guide To Caspian: A Journey into C.S. Lewis's Narnia[6]).