The Inklings was the Oxford writers’ group that met regularly with C.S. Lewis to discuss literature.
The group was an informal literary discussion circle rather than an official university society. Its members and guests gathered mainly in Oxford, often at The Eagle and Child pub, known to them as the Bird and Baby, and in Lewis’s rooms at Magdalen College.
J.R.R. Tolkien was the other most famous member. Charles Williams, Owen Barfield, Warren Lewis, and several other writers and scholars were also associated with the circle at different times. Members read works in progress aloud and offered criticism, making the meetings an important part of the development of some major twentieth-century fantasy and Christian writing.
The Inklings did not publish a collective manifesto or operate with a fixed membership list. That informality is why accounts may differ over who counts as a member, but Lewis and Tolkien are consistently identified as central figures.