The literary group J.R.R. Tolkien helped establish at Oxford was called The Inklings. It was an informal discussion and writing group whose members met mainly during the 1930s and 1940s.
The group included writers connected with the University of Oxford, most famously Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. Meetings involved reading works in progress aloud, discussing literature, and offering candid criticism. Lewis’s participation was especially important to Tolkien, and the two became close friends as well as influential scholars and authors.
The Inklings had no formal constitution, membership list, or published manifesto. Its name was partly a pun on writing and on an earlier Oxford literary club. Meetings often took place in university rooms or at The Eagle and Child pub, known to members as the Bird and Baby.
The group is sometimes described as a movement, but it was primarily a social and intellectual circle. Its conversations supported the development of major works of twentieth-century fantasy and Christian literature.