Which group of writers and scholars included J.R.R. Tolkien at Oxford?

J.R.R. Tolkien belonged to The Inklings, an informal Oxford literary group.

The Inklings met mainly at Oxford during the 1930s and 1940s. Members and regular participants included Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, Owen Barfield, and Warren Lewis. The group was not a formal society with a fixed membership list; it was a circle of friends who read drafts aloud and discussed literature, theology, myth, and imaginative writing.

Tolkien and C.S. Lewis became especially close after meeting at Oxford. Lewis’s encouragement helped Tolkien continue developing The Lord of the Rings, while Tolkien influenced Lewis’s literary and religious thinking. The group was associated with meetings in rooms at Magdalen College and, famously, at the Eagle and Child pub, known to members as the Bird and Baby.

The Inklings name came from an earlier reading club connected with C.S. Lewis. It should not be confused with Bloomsbury, another British literary circle with different members and aesthetic interests.