We propose a novel interpretation of Lewis on the analysis of modality that is constructed from primary sources, comprehensive and unprecedented (in toto). Our guiding precepts are to distinguish semantics from metaphysics, while respecting the inter-relations between them, and to discern whatever may be special, semantically or metaphysically, about the modal case. Following detailed presentation (Sect. 2), we amplify and advocate our interpretation by providing a conforming genealogy of Lewis’s theory of modality (Sect. 3) and applying it to construct a detailed and newly illuminating version of the Lewisian theory of modality de re (Sect. 4)