Editing Inklings (section)

==Meetings==

[[File:Eagle and Child (interior).jpg|thumb|right|300px|A corner of [[The 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 of [[memorabilia]].]]

"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."<ref>{{cite book |first=Bruce L. |last=Edwards |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-e1V5QrT-P8C&q=the+Inklings+was+neither+a+club+for+a+literary+society%2C+though+it+partook+of+the+nature+of+both.+There+were+no+rules%2C+officers%2C+agendas%2C+or+formal+elections&pg=PA279 |title=CS Lewis: Apologist, philosopher, and theologian |year=2007 |publisher=Bloomsbury Academic |isbn=9780275991197}}</ref> 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's ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]'',<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/Inklings|title=Inklings {{!}} literary group|work=Encyclopædia Britannica|access-date=2017-08-02|language=en}}</ref> Lewis's ''[[Out of the Silent Planet]]'', and Williams's ''[[All Hallows' Eve (novel)|All Hallows' Eve]]'' were among the novels first read to the Inklings. Tolkien's fictional [[The Notion Club Papers|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.<ref>{{Citation | url=http://www.culturenorthernireland.org/article.aspx?co=0&ca=0&to=0&sca=0&articleID=2393&navID=0 | title=Culture Northern Ireland | contribution=War of Words over World's Worst Writer | url-status=dead | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070312052952/http://www.culturenorthernireland.org/article.aspx?co=0&ca=0&to=0&sca=0&articleID=2393&navID=0 | archive-date=12 March 2007}}.</ref>

The name was associated originally with a society of [[Oxford University]]'s [[University College, Oxford|University College]], initiated by the then undergraduate [[Edward 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 at [[Magdalen College, Oxford|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."{{sfn|Carpenter|2023|loc=letter #298 to William Luther White, 11 September 1967}}

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 local [[public house]], [[The Eagle and Child]], familiarly and alliteratively known in the Oxford community as The Bird and Baby, or simply The Bird.<ref>{{cite web |title=Eagle & Child pub |website=Headington |url=http://www.headington.org.uk/oxon/stgiles/tour/west/48_49_eagle.htm |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160305013616/http://headington.org.uk/oxon/stgiles/tour/west/48_49_eagle.htm |archive-date=5 March 2016}}.</ref> 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.{{sfn|Carpenter|1979|p=149}} 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.<ref>{{cite journal |title=When did the Inklings meet? A chronological survey of their gatherings: 1933–1954 |last=King |first=D. W. |journal=Journal of Inklings Studies |year=2020 |volume=10 |issue=2 |pages=184–204 |doi=10.3366/ink.2020.0079 |s2cid=226364975 }}</ref> Later pub meetings were at [[Lamb & Flag (Oxford)|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.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.ignatius.com/promotions/looking-for-the-king/who-were-the-inklings.htm |title=Who Were the Inklings? Looking for the King: An Inklings Novel – Available from Ignatius Press |website=Ignatius.com |access-date=2017-08-02}}</ref>