Which author was J.R.R. Tolkien’s close friend and fellow Inkling?

C.S. Lewis was J.R.R. Tolkien’s close friend and fellow member of the Inklings.

The Inklings were an informal Oxford literary discussion group whose members met mainly at The Eagle and Child pub and in rooms at Oxford colleges. Tolkien and Lewis read works in progress to one another and discussed mythology, religion, literature, and imaginative writing. Their friendship became especially important during the years when Tolkien was developing The Lord of the Rings.

Lewis strongly encouraged Tolkien’s fiction, while Tolkien influenced Lewis’s thinking about myth and Christianity. Lewis later wrote the Narnia books, beginning with The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe in 1950. Tolkien’s own work was rooted in a different invented history and mythology, though both authors used fantasy to explore moral and spiritual themes.

Their friendship was not free of disagreements. Tolkien disliked some aspects of Lewis’s literary methods, and their relationship changed over time, but Lewis remained one of the most significant literary companions in Tolkien’s life.