Which author wrote The Lord of the Rings and was a close friend of C.S. Lewis?

J.R.R. Tolkien wrote The Lord of the Rings and was a close friend of C.S. Lewis.

Lewis and Tolkien met at Oxford and became members of the Inklings, an informal literary discussion group that included writers and scholars. They read portions of works in progress to one another and discussed mythology, language, literature, and Christian belief.

Tolkien’s The Hobbit was published in 1937, while The Lord of the Rings appeared in three volumes from 1954 to 1955. Lewis’s own major fantasy sequence, The Chronicles of Narnia, began publication with The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe in 1950. Their friendship and shared interest in myth are often emphasized, although their literary styles and fictional worlds were distinct.

Lewis also knew other members of the Inklings, including Charles Williams and Owen Barfield. That wider circle is why “the Inklings” refers to a group, not simply to Lewis and Tolkien.