What group of writers included C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien?

The group of writers that included C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien was called the Inklings.

The Inklings were an informal literary discussion group associated with Oxford. Members and guests read unfinished writing aloud, discussed books, and debated questions about literature, myth, and Christian belief. The group had no formal constitution or fixed membership list.

Lewis and Tolkien were central figures, while other participants included Charles Williams, Owen Barfield, Warren Lewis, and Hugo Dyson. They often met in Lewis’s rooms at Magdalen College or at the Eagle and Child pub, which became associated with their gatherings.

The Inklings were not the same as the Bloomsbury Group, a London-centered circle associated with writers and artists such as Virginia Woolf. Nor were they a publishing organization. Their importance came from sustained friendship and criticism, which helped shape works including Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings and Lewis’s fiction.