The Eagle and Child
From 1939 to 1962, the Inklings, a group of friends around C.S. Lewis, meet in The Eagle and Child pub every week. Although its building is much older, The Eagle and Child, also known as ‘Bird and Baby’, has been an inn since 1650. The pub’s name is from the family of the Earl of Derby, whose crest was a coronet with an eagle and child. During the Civil War (1642–1651), the inn and the adjoining house serve as a payhouse for the Royalist army. From 1939 to 1962, The Eagle and Child is the regular meeting place of the Inklings.
The Inklings
From June 1925 to December 1954, C.S. Lewis holds a fellowship in English Language and Literature at Magdalen College, Oxford University. At a meeting of the university’s English faculty in May 1926, Lewis meets J.R.R. Tolkien (1892–1973), Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford University. By 1929, Lewis and Tolkien meet weekly in Lewis’s rooms at Magdalen, usually on Monday mornings. Lewis and Tolkien become members of a literary society of college teachers called ‘The Inklings’. The society is initiated around 1930 by Edward Tangye Lean (1911–1974), an undergraduate at University College, but ends when he leaves Oxford in 1933. Lewis then transfers the society’s name to the circle of friends who gather around him. From about 1930 to 1949, the Inklings meet on Thursday evenings in Lewis’s rooms at Magdalen to talk, drink, and read aloud whatever any of them is writing. Then there is discussion and frank and fruitful criticism of the work. From 1939 to 1962, some of the Inklings also meet for drinks and conversations in The Eagle and Child on Tuesday mornings. They meet in the Rabbit Room, the little family parlour at the back of the pub. They sit together from about 11.30 a.m. to 1.00 p.m. and read and discuss the proof of their books. The Tuesday morning meetings are moved to Monday when Lewis becomes a professor at Cambridge University in November 1954. In 1962, when the Rabbit Room of The Eagle and Child is opened to the public and joined to the main bar, the Inklings move to the Lamb & Flag pub on the other side of the street, where they have more privacy.
Space Trilogy
As a child, C.S. Lewis enjoys reading what we now call science fiction books. When he is eleven years old, he and his brother Warren are given a telescope, which opens up a lifetime interest in the heavenly bodies. In the late 1930s, Lewis and Tolkien believe that science fiction should be written from a Christian point of view. Therefore, Lewis writes three space-travel novels about the Cambridge college teacher Dr Elwin Ransom. The first novel, Out of the Silent Planet, is published in September 1938. With this story, Lewis goes against scientism, the belief that the scientific method is the best or only way to render truth about our world and reality. After the publication of Out of the Silent Planet, Lewis realises that he can evangelise through popular books in which Christianity is only implicit. In April 1943, he publishes his second novel, Perelandra. Against the background of the biblical Genesis and John Milton’s book Paradise Lost, Lewis re-imagines the story of the Fall of Man and gives the story of Paradise retained. In August 1945, Lewis finally publishes his third novel, That Hideous Strength: A Modern Fairy-Tale for Grown-Ups. The story reflects Lewis’s conviction that if scientists ever succeed in their purpose to dominate nature, man will be abolished.
The Problem of Pain
After the publication of his books The Pilgrim’s Regress in 1933 and Out of the Silent Planet in 1938, C.S. Lewis is invited by the Centenary Press in London to write a book on pain for their ‘Christian Challenge’ series. The series aims to introduce the Christian faith to people outside the church. Lewis accepts the invitation, and during the first months of the Second World War (1940–1945), he starts writing his first book of Christian apologetics, The Problem of Pain. As Lewis writes the book, he reads it in instalments to the Inklings, to whom he dedicates it. The book, published in October 1940, is an example of faith seeking understanding. It is Lewis’s reply to the argument that all the suffering in the world is inconsistent with, or evidence against, an omnipotent and perfectly loving God. In the book, Lewis tries to assume what is professed by all baptised and communicating Christians. For Lewis, when all is said about the divisions of Christianity, there remains an enormous common ground. He sees it as his task to tell the outside world what all Christians believe. He writes in plain, ordinary language to re-state ancient and orthodox doctrines. Lewis succeeds, and his book The Problem of Pain becomes an immediate bestseller. It is the beginning of his fame as a Christian apologist.
Charles Williams
In December 1947, the Inklings publish Essays Presented to Charles Williams, a collection of six essays by friends of Williams, and a Memoir by C.S. Lewis, in honour of Williams’s death in 1945. Charles Williams (1886–1945) is a poet, novelist, and editor at the London office of Oxford University Press. When the Second World War (1940–1945) causes the evacuation of the press to Oxford, Lewis and Williams meet regularly from September 1939 to May 1945. They share a passion for the poetry of John Milton (1608–1674) and William Wordsworth (1770 – 1850). Lewis is captivated by Williams’s talk and excited by his imaginative speculation and wide-ranging and encompassing ideas in Romantic theology, transforming earthly delights into a Christian vision. Lewis loves Williams’s poems on the legend of the British King Arthur and works on a study of them. It becomes a memorial as Williams dies unexpectedly in May 1945. Lewis is deeply grieved by Williams’s death, but it strengthens his faith. In 1948, the book Arthurian Torso is published. It is a posthumous fragment of the figure of King Arthur by Charles Williams and a commentary on his Arthurian poems by C.S. Lewis.
Sources
Walter Hooper, C.S. Lewis. Companion & Guide
Jeffrey Schultz & John West, The C.S. Lewis Readers’ Encyclopedia