The Inklings was the Oxford literary group that included C.S. Lewis and met for readings and discussion.
The Inklings was an informal group of writers and academics associated with Oxford during the 1930s and 1940s. Members and regular participants read drafts of their work aloud, discussed literature, and debated ideas. C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien were among its best-known members.
The group was not a formal society with a fixed membership list or official constitution. Meetings took place in Oxford settings, including Lewis’s rooms at Magdalen College and the Eagle and Child pub, commonly called the Bird and Baby. Their conversations became part of the intellectual background to works such as Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings and Lewis’s fiction.
The Inklings should not be confused with the Bloomsbury Group, which was associated mainly with London writers, artists, and intellectuals. The name “Inklings” reflects the group’s connection with writing and literary experimentation rather than a single artistic doctrine.