The Inklings remembered by Colin Harvard
Colin Havard was a shy, awkward teenager among Oxford men who would later become literary giants.
He would occasionally join his father at an informal university literary group called the “Inklings” — a play on words about people who played with ink. There, English writers such as CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien read their work and often drank draft Guinness beer.
Topics such as imaginative fiction, narrative and fantasy were discussed. Mr. Havard’s father, Dr. Robert Havard, was an Inkling and personal physician for Mr. Lewis and Mr. Tolkien.
The Inklings met in Mr. Lewis’ college dorm for nearly 20 years starting in the early 1930s. The group was a men’s club and women were barred, Mr. Havard said Monday at Bendectine College at an evening of literary nostalgia.
“It didn’t matter how many women were around who read great books. They were never invited,” said Mr. Havard, who now lives in St. Louis. “They liked to disagree and see if they could out-argue each other.”
Topics ranged from suicide to religion. Both men were Catholic, and their later writings explore various Christian themes.
Mr. Havard said Mr. Lewis would broach topics that would raise the hackles of Mr. Tolkien, who had a more reserved nature.
“He would say ‘What’s so bad about suicide?” Mr. Havard said of Mr. Lewis. “It was sort of a tease.”
Source: stjoenews.net
In 1933, CS Lewis had his first book published, it was entitled Pilgrim’s Regress and this was a tale of his spiritual faith. The Allegory of Love followed in 1936 and Out of the Silent Planet in 1938. The Second World War (1939 – 1945) then followed.
In the period between 1950 and 1956, Lewis wrote the books that he will always be best remembered for, The Chronicles of Narnia, which contained six books which began with the publication of The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe and was completed by The Last Battle. These books have sold over 100 million copies and are amongst the most loved in children’s fiction.
The Lord of the Rings was completed in 1949, but publication was further delayed while Tolkien tried to find a publisher who would agree to publish both The Lord of the Rings AND The Silmarillion. When this proved impossible, Tolkien allowed Allen and Unwin to publish The Lord of the Rings on its own. The book was divided into three separately titled volumes (somewhat to Tolkien’s annoyance, since the work was not intended as a trilogy). The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers were published in 1954 and The Return of the King in 1955.
Posted: February 24th, 2009
Author: Lee
Categories: CS Lewis, JRR Tolkien
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