Informal literary discussion group associated with the University of Oxford, England
This article is about a literary group. For the video game characters, seeInkling (Splatoon).
The New Building atMagdalen College. The Inklings met inC. S. Lewis's rooms, above the arcade on the right side of the central block.
The Inklings were an informalliterary discussion group associated withJ. R. R. Tolkien andC. S. Lewis at theUniversity of Oxford for nearly two decades between the early 1930s and late 1949.[1] The Inklings were literary enthusiasts who praised the value ofnarrative in fiction and encouraged the writing offantasy. The best-known, apart from Tolkien and Lewis, wereCharles Williams, and (although a Londoner)Owen Barfield.
The Eagle and Child pub (commonly known as the Bird and Baby or simply just the Bird) inOxford where the Inklings met informally on Tuesday mornings during term.
The more regular members of the Inklings, many of them academics at the University, included:
A corner ofThe Eagle and Child pub, formerly the landlord's sitting-room where Lewis's friends, including Inklings members, informally gathered on Tuesday mornings. There is a small display ofmemorabilia.
"Properly speaking," wrote Warren Lewis, "the Inklings was neither a club nor aliterary society, though it partook of the nature of both. There were no rules, officers, agendas, or formal elections."[13] As was typical for university groups in their time and place, the Inklings were all male. Readings and discussions of the members' unfinished works were the principal purposes of meetings. Tolkien'sThe Lord of the Rings,[14] Lewis'sOut of the Silent Planet, and Williams'sAll Hallows' Eve were among the novels first read to the Inklings. Tolkien's fictionalNotion Club (see "Sauron Defeated") was based on the Inklings. Meetings were not all serious; the Inklings amused themselves by having competitions to see who could read the notoriously bad prose ofAmanda McKittrick Ros for the longest without laughing.[15]
The name was associated originally with a society ofOxford University'sUniversity College, initiated by the then undergraduateEdward Tangye Lean around 1931, for the purpose of reading aloud unfinished compositions. The society consisted of students and dons, among them Tolkien and Lewis. When Lean left Oxford in 1933, the society ended, and Tolkien and Lewis transferred its name to their group atMagdalen College. On the association between the two 'Inklings' societies, Tolkien later said "although our habit was to read aloud compositions of various kinds (and lengths!), this association and its habit would in fact have come into being at that time, whether the original short-lived club had ever existed or not."[16]
Until late 1949, Inklings readings and discussions were usually held on Thursday evenings in C. S. Lewis's rooms at Magdalen. The Inklings and friends also gathered informally on Tuesdays at midday at a localpublic house,The Eagle and Child, familiarly and alliteratively known in the Oxford community as The Bird and Baby, or simply The Bird.[17] The publican, Charlie Blagrove, let Lewis and friends use his private parlour for privacy; the wall and door separating it from the public bar were removed in 1962.[18] During the war years, beer shortages occasionally rendered the Eagle and Child unable to open and the group instead met at other pubs, including the White Horse and the Kings Arms.[19]
TheMythopoeic Society, with its journalMythlore, is a literary organization devoted to the study of mythopoeic literature, particularly the works of J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, and Charles Williams, founded byGlen GoodKnight in 1967 and incorporated as anon-profit organization in 1971.[20]
Another journal that focuses onThe Inklings isJournal of Inklings Studies (founded in 2011).[21]
Three of the best-known members of the Inklings – Tolkien, Lewis, and Williams – are the main characters ofJames A. Owen's fantasy series,The Chronicles of the Imaginarium Geographica, while Warren Lewis and Hugo Dyson are recurring minor characters throughout the series. The existence and founding of the organization are also alluded to in the third novel,The Indigo King.[22]
^Bailey, Cyril (2004)."Hardie, William Ross (1862–1916)".Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. Retrieved9 November 2024.
^Chadwick, Henry (May 1976). "Obituary: Gervase Mathew".New Blackfriars.57 (672):194–196.doi:10.1111/j.1741-2005 (inactive 1 July 2025).JSTOR43246551.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of July 2025 (link)
^King, D. W. (2020). "When did the Inklings meet? A chronological survey of their gatherings: 1933–1954".Journal of Inklings Studies.10 (2):184–204.doi:10.3366/ink.2020.0079.S2CID226364975.
Kilby, Clyde S.; Mead, Marjorie Lamp, eds. (1982).Brothers and Friends: The Diaries of Major Warren Hamilton Lewis. San Francisco: Harper & Row.ISBN0-06-064575-X.
Duriez, Colin; Porter, David (2001).The Inklings Handbook: The Lives, Thought and Writings of CS Lewis, JRR Tolkien, Charles Williams, Owen Barfield, and their Friends. Azure.ISBN1-902694-13-9.
Glyer, Diana Pavlac (2015).Bandersnatch: CS Lewis, JRR Tolkien, and the Creative Collaboration of the Inklings. Kent State University Press.ISBN9781606352762.
Karlson, Henry (2010).Thinking with the Inklings. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform.ISBN978-1-4505-4130-5.
Knight, Gareth (October 2010).The Magical World of the Inklings.Barfield, Owen (foreword) (new & expanded ed.). Skylight.ISBN978-1-908011-01-5.
Segura, Eduardo; Honegger, Thomas, eds. (2007).Myth and Magic: Art According to the Inklings. Walking Tree Publishers.ISBN978-3-905703-08-5.
Zaleski, Philip; Zaleski, Carol (2015).The Fellowship: The Literary Lives of the Inklings: J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Owen Barfield, Charles Williams. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux.ISBN978-0374154097.
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