The Girdle of Melian

is for many illustrators! Not strictly Inklings, of course. Three of my favourites are: John Howe (who did the covers for the History of Middle-earth series, and who lives in Switzerland!) Pauline Baynes (who has illustrated Tolkien's The Hobbit , Smith of Wootton Major , Farmer Giles of Ham , the Tom Bombadil stories, and C. S. Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia , among others) Tove Jansson (author of the Moomin books). For collections of other artists, see the many images collated on Britta Siemen's pinterest page. John Howe has interesting stories on his blog; one of the more recent ones was a long history of the illustrator of the original books of the land of Oz . I love his colours and the richness of his lines. I just noticed, his website allows you to send many of these illustrations as e-cards! I've been slowly trying to collect a few more of the Tolkien books I've always known about but never been able to get b...

is for Warren Lewis, C. S. Lewis's elder brother, and Walter Hooper, Lewis's biographer. Hooper came in later, having met Lewis in the last year of his life. But Major Warren Lewis -- Warnie -- was, if Lewis was the centre of the Inklings, always there. He lived with his brother after he retired from the army, and wrote a number of books on seventeenth century French history and biography. I have a couple of these in our piles in storage, but haven't read them yet. Chiefly, however, he kept diaries, including mentions of nearly all the Inklings sessions. Humphrey Carpenter had access to these when writing his biography of the Inklings; they're kept in the Wade Collection at Wheaton College in Illinois, just outside of Chicago. I'd love to visit Wheaton someday... There are seven authors featured at the Wade Centre : Owen Barfield, Charles Williams, C. S. Lewis, Dorothy L. Sayers, George MacDonald, G. K. Cheste...

is for...not much to do with K. It's another one of my sneak-in-a-post days. Three of my A to Z posts will feature items from The Tolkien Photo Challenge , and this is part one! The original Tolkien collection photo challenge was organized on the Middle-earth News blog by Britta Siemen and Myla Malinalda: "If you have a blog or any kind of social media account, feel free to participate! (If not, you can always leave a comment on any of my posts showing off your item for that entry.) One of my favourite things about being a collector is seeing what other people like to collect. Additionally, this photo challenge only covers 20 days, but I'd like to go through the entire month of January, so I'll likely be thinking of a few more items to add to the list. If there's something specific from my collection you'd like to see or know more about, leave a comment and I'll post it before the month is over!" I've compressed it all into three posts, a...

is for Jack (C. S. Lewis). I'm trying to think of how best to describe him to those who might not know him at all. Fellow, Tutor, and Professor, at Oxford and Cambridge; veteran of World War I; Christian apologist and author; author of The Chronicles of Narnia ; author of a space travel trilogy; nucleus of the Inklings. I think the best thing is to be brief. For my part, I love the atmosphere of talk and friendship and books revealed in this episode, related in Humphrey Carpenter's biography: [On a time], "Tolkien and [Lewis] decided to spend an evening reading aloud the libretto of Wagner's Die Walkure [in German]. They began after tea, broke off for supper at the Eastgate -- 'where we had fried fish and a savoury omelette, with beer' -- and then returned to [Lewis's] rooms in Magdalen 'and finished our play (and incidentally the best part of a decanter of very inferior whiskey),' recorded Warnie [Jack's brother, in his diary]. 'Ar...

is for infrequent visitors to Inklings meetings. Such visitors included Percy Bates, Charles Leslie Wrenn, Colin Hardie, James Dundas-Grant, John David Arnett, Jon Fromke, John Wain, R. B. McCallum, and Gervase Mathew. Among other names, in rereading Humphrey Carpenter's biography, I rediscovered the fact that the poet John Betjeman and C. S. Lewis did not get along... "'Betjeman and Valentin came for Old English,' Lewis wrote in his diary. 'Betjeman appeared in a pair of eccentric bedroom slippers and said he hoped I didn't mind them as he had a blister. He seemed so pleased with himself that I couldn't help saying that I should mind them very much myself but that I had no objection to his wearing them -- a view which I believe surprised him. Both had been very idle over the O. E. and I told them it wouldn't do.'" This reminds me of a story my great-aunt used to tell, of how she once (in the 1960s) sent a student home because th...

is for Hurst Green , among the many places of Tolkien's influence, including Sarehole Mill. I'm reposting a blog post from last year: arly spring in the English countryside... One of the projects I've had hanging over my head is a guest post on our trip to Tolkien country in Lancashire a couple of years ago. I've had the photos for quite a long time, and haven't managed to write the post. Instead, I'll share them here now, with a few brief headers.   Starting on the Tolkien Trail, in Hurst Green, Ribble Valley, Lancashire...   Not the one in Oxford...   "As well as its links to J.R.R Tolkien, other literary figures associated with [Stonyhurst] college include Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (a former pupil), the poet Fr. Gerard Manley Hopkins (a former member of staff ) and contemporary novelist Patrick McGrath."   Intriguing carvings in the gardens of a house near the college   Where Tolkien ...