C.S. Lewis’s close friend and fellow Oxford writer in the Inklings who authored The Hobbit was J.R.R. Tolkien.
Lewis and Tolkien met at Oxford and developed a friendship grounded in shared interests in language, myth, literature, and Christianity. Tolkien was a philologist and medievalist whose imaginative fiction included The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Lewis became an important early reader and supporter of Tolkien’s work.
The Inklings was an informal Oxford literary discussion group that met mainly at the Eagle and Child pub and in college rooms. Its members read works in progress aloud and discussed fiction, poetry, and religious writing. The group was not a formal society with a fixed membership, but Lewis and Tolkien were among its best-known participants.
Their friendship also had limits and disagreements. Tolkien was Roman Catholic, while Lewis belonged to the Church of England, and they did not always agree about literary style or religious questions. Nonetheless, their shared conversations had a lasting influence on twentieth-century fantasy and Christian literature.