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The flames in the fireplace dance cheerfully to the sounds of conversation. They cast shadows on the handsome white-paneled walls. Suddenly, a hush falls on the company. The seven individuals who had previously been chatting about a wide range of topics (politics, theology, literature) now turn toward one in an armchair.

Seated in the chair is a man of slight build, informally dressed in the uniform of the literary scholar: tweed jacket and flannel trousers, yet his stylish and striking ornamental waistcoat sets him apart from the others.

A solidly built man next to him addresses him as “Tollers” and says, “Now, let’s hear some writing. Tollers, read to us some of your new hobbit.”

Tollers nods and smiles, picking up a manuscript and asking if he should start from the beginning, for he has made several changes to the opening pages.

John Ronald Reuel “Tollers” Tolkien was born in Bloemfontein, South Africa on Jan. 4th, 1892 to British parents. He grew up to become an Oxford University professor, medieval scholar, philologist, and an acclaimed fantasy writer.

Among his more famous fantasy books are The Hobbit and its sequel The Lord of the Rings. Through these and other works Tolkien sought to reintroduce the fantasy genre to his country England, which had banished it to the nursery as stories only for children; he wished to show how powerfully it can convey an author’s ideas and how an adult readership can benefit by such a genre.

Tolkien owes a large amount of his success to his friendship with another highly praised fantasy and nonfiction writer: C. S. Lewis.

The solidly built man chuckles at one of Toller’s sentences. He smokes on his pipe, contemplatively listening to the story.

Lewis was born in Belfast, Ireland, six years before Tolkien. He started as a tutor at Oxford, but also went on to fulfill the position of professor of medieval and Renaissance English literature at the University of Cambridge.

Lewis met Tolkien shortly after Tolkien had become Professor of Anglo-Saxon in Oxford and Lewis had taken up his post at Magdalen College (one of the constituent colleges at Oxford). Lewis said of his first impression of Tolkien: “No harm in him – only needs a smack or two.”

From this first meeting sprang a strong friendship between the two scholars, fed by their shared love of medieval and fantasy literature. They started a small club called The Coalbiters whose members gathered and translated Old Icelandic works. Shortly after this club ended, a new one sprang up, called The Inklings, of which both Tolkien and Lewis were members. The Inklings members encouraged the fantasy genre, and their writing reflected their Christian theology and ideals.

“Properly speaking," said W. H. Lewis, C. S. Lewis’ brother and fellow Inkling member, “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.”

Tolkien had a great influence on Lewis, especially on his view of myths. Colin Duriez in his book Tolkien and C. S. Lewis writes: “Tolkien influenced Lewis…with his view of a connection between myth and fact which goes back, as Tolkien believed, to the very nature of language; it could be described as a theology of story or even a theology of language.” Further, Tolkien shared with Lewis his “doctrine of sub-creation.” Tolkien believed that secondary worlds created by fantasy writers can convey and reflect the beauty and majesty of the real world and strengthen a person’s Christianity. Also, many of the names and ideas that Lewis integrated into his stories were borrowed from some of Tolkien’s own writing.

Lewis also had a large impact on Tolkien. In a letter Tolkien wrote: “The unpayable debt that I owe to [Lewis] was not ‘influence’ as it is ordinarily understood, but sheer encouragement. He was for long my only audience. Only from him did I ever get the idea that my ‘stuff’ could be more than a private hobby. But for his interest and unceasing eagerness for more I should never had brought [LOTR] to a conclusion.” Without Lewis’ willingness to listen to Tolkien’s writing, his support, comments, and, simply put, his friendship, millions of readers may never have discovered Middle Earth, hobbits, ents, and Tolkien’s other creations. Duriez points out that had The Inklings continued and had Tolkien and Lewis continued to share such a strong friendship (for they began to drift apart, especially after Lewis’ marriage), “there might exist today a complete telling of the tales of the earlier Ages of Middle-earth, approaching the scale of The Lord of the Rings.”

The friendship of Tolkien and Lewis was strong; the two writers shared a vision to introduce fantasy back to an adult readership. They obviously succeeded. But that vision was only reached because of their friendship.

 

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