In That Hideous Strength, the lives of two young academics, Mark and Jane Studdock are upended when a research agency, the National Institute for Co-ordinated Experiments (N.I.C.E.), purchases land thought to be the burial place of the ancient wizard Merlin from Bracton College, where they work. While Mark strives to join the inner circle of N.I.C.E., Jane, seeks help for her troubling recurring dreams in a nearby town called St. Anne’s. It is there she meets Elwin Ransom, the hero of the first two Space Trilogy novels, who reveals to her the sinister aims of N.I.C.E. The third book in C.S. Lewis’ Space Trilogy, it was first published in 1945.