The Inklings was the Oxford literary group co-founded by C.S. Lewis that included J.R.R. Tolkien.
The Inklings was an informal discussion and reading group rather than a formal society with a fixed membership list. Its participants met in Oxford, often at Lewis’s rooms in Magdalen College and at the Eagle and Child pub. Members read aloud from works in progress and discussed literature, mythology, Christianity, and language.
J.R.R. Tolkien was one of the group’s most important members and a close friend of Lewis. Their conversations helped create a setting in which drafts and ideas could be tested before publication. Charles Williams and Owen Barfield were also associated with the group.
The Inklings should not be confused with the Bloomsbury Group, which was a different English intellectual and artistic circle. The Inklings’ identity came from fellowship, conversation, and shared literary interests rather than from a published manifesto.