The Inklings

I discovered Fantasy novels in fits and starts. As a child, I was a voracious reader, devouring books as fast as I could find them Many people were amused by this, and some of them saw fit to feed my appetite. I was very young when someone handed me a copy of "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe", and in a rather offhand manner wondered if I could read such a thick book. Of course I could, and I did.

For me, opening that book was like opening the Wardrobe door of my imagination. I never dreamed that there were books out there like this book, and I desperately wanted to find more.

I did find more. In the years that followed, I discovered LeGuin, Tanith Lee, Tolkien and so many others. I also discovered a great deal about the authors who wrote the books that I love, particularly C. S. Lewis and J. R.R. Tolkien. I loved the complexity and beauty of their prose, and the depth of the philosophy and mythology of their worlds.

I was surprised to learn that they were such close friends. It seems obvious, given their interests and personalities, that they would be close, but what were the chances that they would both be at Oxford at the same time? Two of the greatest Fantasy writers of all time, both teaching at Oxford in the '30's and '40's. Add to the mix Charles Williams, another Fantasy writer who they both admired greatly, and a double handful of other intellectuals, and you have the Inklings.

I sometimes wonder: without the Inklings, would Lewis, Tolkien or Williams have produced the works that we know today? Perhaps. Yet I think that they would have struggled.

The Inklings were a gathering of friends -- all of them British, male, and Christian, most of them teachers at or otherwise affiliated with Oxford University, many of them creative writers and lovers of imaginative literature -- who met usually on Thursday evenings in C. S. Lewis's and J. R.R. Tolkien's college rooms in Oxford during the 1930s and 1940s for readings and criticism of their own work, and for general conversation. "Properly speaking," wrote W. H. Lewis, one of their number, the Inklings "was neither a club nor a literary society, though it partook of the nature of both. There were no rules, officers, agendas, or formal elections." An overlapping group gathered on Tuesday (later Monday) mornings in various Oxford pubs, usually but not always the Eagle and Child, better known as the Bird and Baby, between the 1940s and 1963. These were not strictly Inklings meetings, and contrary to popular legend the Inklings did not read their manuscripts in the pub.

This bibliography is intended as a brief guide to works of fiction, poetry, essays and letters by the three principal Inklings, and to introductory works about them. A supplement discusses the other Inklings. Most of these books are in print; many others should be in large libraries. Publishers of U.S. editions are listed; check with a bookstore, or at amazon.com or elsewhere online for current availability. Dates are of first publication; "pb" means pocket-sized paperback; otherwise the publisher issues a hardcover and/or large-size (trade) paperback. Omnibus editions and special editions are numerous and generally not noted.

Member's List

J. R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973) Assistant Editor, Oxford English Dictionary (1918-1920); Reader (later Professor) of English Language at Leeds University (1920-1926); Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford University (1925-1945); Merton Professor of English Language and Literature at Oxford University (1945-1959)

C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) Fellow and Tutor in English at Magdalen College, Oxford University (1925-1954); Professor of Medieval and Renaissance English at Cambridge University (1954-1963)

Charles Williams (1886-1945) Staff editor, Oxford University Press (1908-1945)

The Other Inklings

Owen Barfield (1898-1997) philosopher and attorney
Nevill Coghill (1899-1980) professor of English Literature at Oxford University; producer of plays
W. H. Lewis (1895-1973) brother of C. S. Lewis; professional soldier and amateur historian
Gervase Mathew (1905-1976) lecturer in Byzantine studies at Oxford University
John Wain (1925-1994) novelist, poet, dramatist, and critic; Professor of Poetry at Oxford University 1973-1978
J.A.W. Bennett (1911-1981) C. S. Lewis's successor as Professor of Medieval and Renaissance English at Cambridge (1964-1978)
Lord David Cecil (1902-1986) Professor of English Literature at Oxford; author of biographies of Max Beerbohm and Lord Melbourne
Jim Dundas-Grant (1896-1985) Commander of the Oxford University Naval Division
H.V.D. "Hugo" Dyson (1896-1975) Lecturer and tutor in English at Reading and Oxford Universities
Adam Fox (1883-1977) Professor of Poetry at Oxford (1938-1943); Dean of Divinity at Magdalen College, Oxford; Canon of Westminster Abbey
Colin Hardie (1906-1998) Lecturer and tutor in Classics at Oxford
Robert E. Havard (1901-1985) Physician; author of the clinical appendix to C. S. Lewis's The Problem of Pain
R.B. McCallum (1898-1973) Lecturer and tutor in Modern History and Politics at Oxford
C.E. Stevens (1905-1976) Lecturer and tutor in Ancient History at Oxford
Christopher Tolkien (b. 1924) Lecturer and tutor in English Language at Oxford (to 1975); son of J. R.R. Tolkien and editor of his father's posthumous works
C.L. Wrenn (1895-1969) Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford (1946-1963)

The Members That Weren't

Dorothy L. Sayers, W. H. Auden, T.S. Eliot, and Roger Lancelyn Green were never members of the group, although they are sometimes given Inkling status. They were friends of some Inklings.

David Lindsay and T.H. White, also occasionally named as Inklings, had no known connection with them at all.