page_title: The Inklings
section_title: Meetings
hierarchical_section_title: The Inklings / Meetings
caption_attribution_description: English: Picture of the corner of the Eagle and Child pub in Oxford (England), where the Inklings met (1930–1950). Español: Fotografía de la esquina del pub Eagle and Child en Oxford (Inglaterra), donde los Inklings se reunían (1930–1950).
context_page_description: The Inklings were an informal literary discussion group associated with C. S. Lewis at the University of Oxford for nearly two decades between the early 1930s and late 1949. The Inklings were literary enthusiasts who praised the value of narrative in fiction and encouraged the writing of fantasy. The best-known, apart from Lewis, were J. R. R. Tolkien and Charles Williams, and, Owen Barfield.
context_section_description: "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. 
  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; the Inklings amused themselves by having competitions to see who could read the notoriously bad prose of Amanda McKittrick Ros for the longest without laughing.
  The name was associated originally with a society of Oxford University's University College, initiated by the then undergraduate Edward Tangye Lean circa 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 during 1933, the society ended, and Tolkien and Lewis transferred its name to their group at Magdalen 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."
  Until late 1949, Inklings readings and discussions usually occurred during Thursday evenings in C. S. Lewis's college rooms at Magdalen College. The Inklings and friends were also known to informally gather on Tuesdays at midday at a local public house, The Eagle and Child, familiarly and alliteratively known in the Oxford community as The Bird and Baby, or simply The Bird. The publican, Charlie Blagrove, permitted Lewis and friends the use of his private parlour for privacy; the wall and door separating it from the public bar were removed in 1962. Later pub meetings were 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 is the best known.
caption: A corner of The Eagle and Child pub, formerly the landlord's sitting-room where Lewis' friends, including Inklings members, informally gathered on Tuesday mornings.  There is a small display of memorabilia.
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