The Inklings was the Oxford literary group that included C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and Charles Williams.
The Inklings met mainly in Oxford during the 1930s and 1940s. Members read sections of works in progress aloud, discussed literature, and debated ideas about Christianity, myth, and imagination. Lewis and Tolkien were central figures, while Charles Williams became an important member after moving to Oxford during the Second World War.
The group was informal rather than a registered club with a fixed membership list. Its meetings are especially associated with Lewis’s rooms at Magdalen College and the Eagle and Child pub, which members nicknamed the Bird and Baby. Warren Lewis, Lewis’s brother, also attended many meetings and recorded information about them in his diaries.
The Inklings did not publish a shared manifesto or write as a collective. Their importance comes from the conversations and mutual criticism that supported major works, including Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings and Lewis’s science fiction and theological books. The group’s name was adopted from an earlier Oxford discussion club.