The Inklings Handbook: A Comprehensive Guide to the Lives, Thought and Writings of C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Charles Williams, Owen Barfield and Their Friends

by Colin Duriez, David Porter

The Oxford Inklings was an informal group of literary friends who met weekly to talk about ideas and pieces they were writing and enjoy a good evening of "the cut and parry of prolonged, fierce and masculine argument." This comprehensive guide to the lives, thoughts, and writings of C.S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, Charles Williams, and Owen Barfield provides an introduction to the Inklings and a second A-Z section that contains many biographical articles, as well as entries on the group's publications, themes, and theology.

Genres: Nonfiction, Biography

244 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 2001

About the author

Colin Duriez is an English writer and scholar best known for his work on the Inklings, the literary circle that included C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, Owen Barfield, and Charles Williams. Born in Derbyshire in 1947, he moved to Leicester in 1983 to work as a commissioning editor for the publisher IVP. Over the years he has combined editorial work with teaching, and in 2002 he established his own business, InWriting, in Keswick, Cumbria, providing writing and editorial services as well as book acquisition for publishers.
Winner of the Clyde S. Kilby Award in 1994 for his research on the Inklings, Duriez has been praised as one of the most valuable contemporary scholars on Lewis. His numerous books explore the lives, friendships, and imaginative worlds of Lewis and Tolkien, including Bedeviled: Lewis, Tolkien, and the Shadow of Evil, The Oxford Inklings, and Tolkien and C. S. Lewis: The Gift of Friendship. His work has been lauded for accessibility, scholarly insight, and fresh perspectives.
Duriez has also appeared in television documentaries such as A Quest for Meaning – Myth, Imagination & Faith in the Literature of J. R. R. Tolkien & C. S. Lewis. He lives in Wallingford, Oxfordshire.

Reviews

[Nathan Albright · Rating 4 out of 5]

Many people reading this book will enter it already being familiar with the writings of J.R.R. Tolkien as well as C.S. Lewis.  One of the authors at least (Colin Duriez) has made somewhat of a career of writing about the Inklings and this is certainly a worthy effort in preserving the gravy train of book royalties in writing about some of the most important writers of the 20th century.  I am less familiar with the other writer, but suffice it to say that this book does a really good job in bringing attention to the lesser known members of the Inklings whose works have not been read.  It is an easy thing to know something about the Chronicles of Narnia or Middle Earth, and virtually all of the people reading this book will be familiar with those, but there are a lot of works written by other members of the Inklings that are less well known, and I would like to be more familiar with some of it despite it being hard to find, or else I likely would know some of these works better.

This book is a relatively short one at a bit more than 200 pages.  The book is divided into two unequal parts.  The first part of the book is short, at less than 50 pages, and discusses the life and times of the Inklings (1), a chronology of their lives and writings (2), a discussion on the making of Narnia (3), a glimpse into Tolkien's Middle Earth (4), a discussion of the relationship between Arthur, Logres, and the Empire in Charles Williams' writings (5), and a discussion of the relationship between theology and fantasy in the writings of the Inklings (6).  The second part of the book, which takes up almost 200 pages, is a detailed A-Z list of matters relating to the Inklings and their thinking.  This includes the books written by the Inklings as well as their subjects of interest (like Natural Law and Natural Theology) and contains a great deal of obscure information about the writings and thinking of the Inklings that will likely be unfamiliar to most of the book's readers, and may inspire more research so that it becomes more familiar in the future.  After this the book ends with a bibliography as well as a selection of writings about the Inklings.

If this book does anything, it is putting the works of the Inklings into a perspective where one can see the influence that the various members had on each other.  Likewise, the book does a great job at pointing out the writings of those members of the Inklings who are less familiar to readers today.  Owen Barfield's thinking on poetry as written about in Poetic Diction had a massive influence on the thinking and writing of Tolkien and Lewis, and even if his religious beliefs were a bit different, he still contributed mightily to the thinking of his friends.  Similarly, Charles Williams, if an obscure writer these days, was once very well regarded even if Tolkien disliked him and even if certain aspects of his thinking and life were at least a little bit creepy.  Perhaps the most surprising case of all is that of C.S. Lewis' brother Warnie, who turns out to have been an accomplished historian of ancien regime France in a way that I would like to become familiar with.  If a book like this can help the writings of these forgotten and obscure Inklings to be more familiar with an audience who already appreciates Lewis and Tolkien, that would be a good thing.

[Nancy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really enjoyed the first section of this book. the section with recaps of the various writings is really more appropriate for research than casual reading.

[Ted · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is not quite what I expected at first glance, being a sort of lexicon, almost an encyclopedia, of the Inklings - especially J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Owen Barfield - and their major works, themes, influences, etc. It works quite well in that format, however, drawing connections and showing how the Inklings shared various themes and motifs. It also gives much more attention to Williams and Barfield than some other works more focused on the Tolkien-Lewis duo. The book does have an annoying tendency to refer to the Inklings only by their initials, and the occasional interjecting of appreciation for Iron Crown Enterprise's Middle-Earth Role Playing (MERP): The Role Playing Game of J.R.R. Tolkien's World (#8100) BOX SET , while amusing, seemed somewhat out of place. But these are only minor quibbles with what is really a very useful reference work.

[Ann · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good beginner's handbook. Unfortunately David Porter wrote the first ed. with Mr. Duriez. My friend David Porter has passed away. A lovely person he was!