The Inklings was the informal literary group associated with J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis.
The Inklings met mainly in Oxford during the 1930s and 1940s. Members and visitors read works in progress aloud, discussed literature, and offered criticism. Tolkien and Lewis were central figures, while Charles Williams and Owen Barfield were among the other prominent participants.
The group was not a formally incorporated society with a fixed membership list or constitution. Its meetings were associated with Oxford venues including the Eagle and Child pub, known to members as the Bird and Baby, and rooms in colleges. The discussions gave writers an audience for testing ideas before publication.
The Inklings should not be confused with the T.C.B.S., the school friendship group Tolkien formed with Christopher Wiseman, Robert Gilson, and Geoffrey Smith. Nor was it the later Mythopoeic Society, founded by admirers of mythopoeic literature. The Inklings mattered because of the sustained conversation among working writers at a crucial stage in Tolkien’s and Lewis’s careers.