Which Oxford writer was J.R.R. Tolkien’s close friend and fellow Inkling?

C. S. Lewis was J.R.R. Tolkien’s close friend and fellow Inkling.

Tolkien and Lewis taught at Oxford and became friends during the 1920s. They shared drafts of works in progress, discussed mythology and Christianity, and encouraged one another’s writing. Their conversations helped create an important intellectual friendship during the development of both men’s literary careers.

The Inklings were an informal Oxford literary discussion group that met mainly at The Eagle and Child pub and in Lewis’s rooms at Magdalen College. The group was not a formal society with a fixed membership list, but Tolkien and Lewis were among its best-known participants. Charles Williams and Owen Barfield were also associated with it.

Lewis became famous for The Chronicles of Narnia, while Tolkien wrote The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Their friendship was influential, though they did not agree on every literary or religious question, and it became more distant later in Tolkien’s life.