Inklings

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The Inklings was an informal literary discussion group associated with the University of Oxford, England, for nearly two decades between the early 1930s and late 1949. [Kilby, Clyde S., and Marjorie Lamp Mead, editors: "Brothers and Friends: The Diaries of Major Warren Hamilton Lewis", page 230. Harper and Row, 1982] Its most regular members (many of them academics at the University) included J. R. R. "Tollers" Tolkien, C. S. "Jack" Lewis, Owen Barfield, Charles Williams, Christopher Tolkien (J. R. R. Tolkien's son), Warren "Warnie" Lewis (C. S. Lewis's elder brother), Roger Lancelyn Green, Adam Fox, Hugo Dyson, Robert Havard, J. A. W. Bennett, Lord David Cecil, and Nevill Coghill. Other less frequent attenders at their meetings included Percy Bates, Charles Leslie Wrenn, Colin Hardie, James Dundas-Grant, John Wain, R. B. McCallum, Gervase Mathew, and C. E. Stevens. The author E. R. Eddison also met the group at the invitation of C. S. Lewis.

The Inklings were literary enthusiasts who praised the value of narrative in fiction, and encouraged the writing of fantasy. Although Christian values were notably reflected in several members' work, there were also atheists among the members of the discussion group.

"Properly speaking," wrote Warren Lewis, "the Inklings was neither a club nor a literary society, though it partook of the nature of both. There were no rules, officers, agendas, or formal elections."

As was typical for university literary groups in their time and place, the Inklings were all male. (Dorothy L. Sayers, sometimes claimed as an Inkling, was a friend of Lewis and Williams, but never attended Inklings meetings.)

Readings and discussions of the members' unfinished works were the principal purposes of meetings. Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings", Lewis's "Out of the Silent Planet", and Williams's "All Hallows' Eve" were among the novels first read to the Inklings. Tolkien's fictional Notion Club (see "Sauron Defeated") was based on the Inklings.

Meetings were not all serious though; the Inklings amused themselves by having competitions to see who could read the famously bad prose of Amanda McKittrick Ros for the longest without laughing. [ [http://www.culturenorthernireland.org/article.aspx?co=0&ca=0&to=0&sca=0&articleID=2393&navID=0 CultureNorthernIreland " War of Words over World's Worst Writer"] ]

Until late 1939, Inklings readings and discussions were usually held on Thursday evenings in C. S. Lewis's college rooms at Magdalen College. The Inklings were also known to gather Tuesdays midday at a local pub, The Eagle and Child, familiarly and alliteratively known in the Oxford community as The Bird and Baby, or simply The Bird [ [http://www.headington.org.uk/oxon/stgiles/tour/west/48_49_eagle.htm Eagle & Child pub] ] . Later pub meetings were held at The Lamb and Flag across the street, and in earlier years the Inklings also met irregularly in yet other pubs, but The Eagle and Child has kept the cachet.

The name was originally associated with a club at University College, founded by the then undergraduate Edward Tangye Lean in c. 1931, for the purpose of reading aloud unfinished compositions. The club consisted of students and dons, among them Tolkien and Lewis. When Lean left Oxford in 1933, the club died, and its name was transferred by Tolkien and Lewis to their group at Magdalen. On the connection 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."

Named after the Inklings is the Inklings society based in Aachen, and their yearbook, "Inklings Jahrbuch für Literatur und Ästhetik", published from 1983 by "Brendow", Moers. The yearbook contains scholarly articles and reviews, dealing with Inklings members in particular, but also with fantasy literature and mythopoeia in general.

The Marion E. Wade Center, located at Wheaton College, Illinois is devoted to the work of seven British authors including four Inklings and Dorothy L. Sayers. Overall, the Wade Center has more than 11,000 volumes including first editions and critical works. Other holdings on the seven foremost authors (Owen Barfield, G. K. Chesterton, C. S. Lewis, George MacDonald, Dorothy L. Sayers, J. R. R. Tolkien, and Charles Williams) include letters, manuscripts, audio and video tapes, artwork, dissertations, periodicals, photographs, and related materials.

See also

* J. R. R. Tolkien
* C. S. Lewis
* Owen Barfield
* Charles Williams
* G. K. Chesterton
* George MacDonald

References

Further reading

*cite book
title = The Inklings: C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, Charles Williams and Their Friends
last = Carpenter
first = Humphrey
year = 1979
id = ISBN 0-395-27628-4
*cite book
title = The Inklings Handbook: The Lives, Thought and Writings of C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, Charles Williams, Owen Barfield, and Their Friends
last = Duriez
first = Colin
coauthors = David Porter
year = 2001
id = ISBN 1-902694-13-9
*cite book
title = Tolkien and C. S. Lewis: The Gift of Friendship
last = Duriez
first = Colin
year = 2003
id = ISBN 1-58768-026-2
*cite book
title = The Company They Keep: C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien as Writers in Community
last = Glyer
first = Diana
year = 2007
id = ISBN 0873388909
*Clyde S. Kilby and Marjorie Lamp Mead (eds.), "Brothers and Friends: The Diaries of Major Warren Hamilton Lewis". Harper & Row Publishers. San Francisco. 1982. ISBN 0-06-064575-X
*Eduardo Segura and Thomas Honegger (eds.), "Myth and Magic: Art according to the Inklings", Walking Tree Publishers (2007), ISBN 978-3-905703-08-5.

External links

* [http://www.pseudobook.com/cslewis A website focused on C. S. Lewis and the Inklings]
* [http://www.mythsoc.org/inklings.html An Inklings bibliography] from The Mythopoeic Society
* [http://www.inklings-gesellschaft.de/ German Inklings Society]
* [http://www.wheaton.edu/learnres/wade/ Marion E. Wade Center] research collection
* [http://www.oxforddnb.com/public/themes/92/92544.html Entry] in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography