C.S. Lewis was J.R.R. Tolkien’s close friend and fellow Oxford academic.
Tolkien and Lewis met at Oxford in 1926 and developed a friendship based on their shared interest in mythology, medieval literature, and Christianity. Lewis became one of the earliest listeners to Tolkien’s developing stories and languages, while Tolkien read and discussed Lewis’s work in return.
They were members of the Inklings, an informal Oxford literary group that met mainly at The Eagle and Child pub and in Lewis’s rooms at Magdalen College. The group included writers who read works in progress aloud and offered criticism.
Their friendship was important but not without strain. Differences over religion, literary judgment, and personal matters affected them at times. Lewis became famous for The Chronicles of Narnia, while Tolkien became famous for Middle-earth. Their shared Oxford setting and literary conversations remain central to accounts of both authors.