C.S. Lewis joined the Oxford literary discussion group known as The Inklings with J.R.R. Tolkien and Charles Williams.
The Inklings was an informal association of writers and scholars connected with the University of Oxford. Its members met to read aloud and discuss works in progress, essays, poetry, and ideas about literature. Lewis and Tolkien were among its best-known participants, while Charles Williams became another important member after moving to Oxford during the Second World War.
The group did not have a formal constitution or membership card. Its meetings were associated with college rooms and Oxford pubs, especially the Eagle and Child, often called the Bird and Baby. The group’s conversations helped create a social setting in which writers could test ambitious fictional and theological ideas.
The Inklings is sometimes mistaken for a university society with official institutional status. It was instead a personal and literary circle, remembered for the connections among several major twentieth-century writers.