J.R.R. Tolkien’s Oxford fellowship of writers and scholars was called the Inklings.
The Inklings were an informal literary discussion group associated with Oxford, especially active from the 1930s into the 1940s. Members and regular participants included Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Owen Barfield. They met in college rooms and at the Eagle and Child pub, commonly known as the Bird and Baby.
The group read drafts aloud, discussed literature, and offered criticism. Tolkien shared parts of The Lord of the Rings, while Lewis developed works that included The Chronicles of Narnia. Their meetings were social as well as intellectual, and membership was not a formally fixed roster like that of a university society.
The name Inklings had existed before the group reached its best-known form and suggested both writing and a hint of an idea. It should not be confused with the Bloomsbury Group, an earlier London-centered circle of artists and intellectuals.