Author. He received recognition in the 20th century as an American author, who wrote about the Christian faith. He is best-known for his autobiographical book "A Severe Mercy" in 1977, which recounts his and his wife's friendship with British author C. S. Lewis, their conversion to Christianity, and dealing with tragedy. "A Severe Mercy" received the National Religious Book Award in 1978. Born the son of a wealthy lawyer, Robert Glenn Vanauken and his wife Grace Merle Hanselman, Frank Sheldon Vanauken spent his childhood at the family home, "Glenmerle", which was a composite of his parents' middle names, located on the southside of Carmel, Indiana. He received a military school education. While at college, he dropped "Frank" from his name and in later life, was known to friends simply as "Van". During his junior year at Wabash College in 1937, he met his future wife, Jean "Davy" Palmer Davis. When they first fell in love, they made a vow they called the "Shining Barrier"; a promise to share everything in life with each other, including all interests, friends, and work. Its purpose was to bind them so closely together that nothing could ever separate them. Their devotion to this idea was so complete that they decided never to have children, feeling motherhood would be an experience which could not be shared equally. They married secretly, due to his father's opposition to early marriages, on October 1, 1937, just ten months after meeting. The marriage was not revealed to his family until the winter of 1940, just before he joined the Navy. He was stationed at Pearl Harbor during the Japanese attack and the start of World War II. When his father died suddenly on July 31, 1943, he inherited a substantial amount of money and used some of it to have a boat built which they named "Grey Goose," for the bird which remains true to one mate throughout life. Following his studies in history at Yale University, from which he received a master's degree in 1948, and a stint in the Navy stationed in Hawaii, the young couple spent considerable time sailing "Grey Goose" around Chesapeake Bay, the Florida Keys, and the Caribbean. Both were agnostics at this time. In 1948, he took a teaching position at Lynchburg College in Virginia. However, when postwar travel to Europe became possible again, he and his wife moved to England to study at Oxford University, where he received a Bachelor of Letters degree in 1957. While there, they became friends with a circle of young Christian students mentored by C.S. Lewis. This influenced his wife's conversion to Christianity, which challenged the Shining Barrier. Eventually, he followed her, although with less conviction at first. However, their faith was put to the test when his wife was diagnosed with terminal liver disease in 1954. She died six months later at age 40. After her death, he called the "Shining Barrier" a "pagan love, invaded by Christ." He never remarried, but spent the rest of his career as a professor of history at Lynchburg College, retiring in 1980 and eventually converted to Roman Catholicism. His book ,"A Severe Mercy", about his relationship with his wife and his eventual conversion, became a best-seller, and eventually was followed by a not-as-successful sequel, "Under the Mercy". His other works include a novel, "Gateway to Heaven"; "The Glittering Illusion: English Sympathy for the Southern Confederacy;" "Mercies: Collected Poems"; and "The Little Lost Marion and Other Mercies". His final work was his own obituary, published after his death in the "Lynchburg News and Advance". He died of lung cancer in 1996.