vtboyarc writes: I am a student at Benedictine College in Kansas, I got this email today, and it is also posted on the college website. Here it is: “Benedictine College will host a special presentation on the famous Inklings English literary group of the early 1900s on Monday, Feb. 23. Mark Colin Havard will deliver his presentation, The Lewis and Tolkien I Knew: Memories of an Inklings Son, beginning at 7:30 p.m. in the OMalley-McAllister Auditorium on the college campus. The event, sponsored by the English and Theology Departments, is free and open to the public.
Havard is the son of Dr. Robert Havard of Oxford, who was the personal physician and close friend of both C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien as well as a member of the Inklings fellowship. As a teenager, the younger Havard attended Inklings sessions along with his father. His recollections of those men, the meetings, house-sitting for Lewis at the Kilns, and other anecdotes comprise this evening of literary reminiscence.
Associated with the University of Oxford, the Inklings was an informal literary discussion group that met for nearly two decades between the early 1930s and 1949. The Inklings were literary enthusiasts who praised the value of narrative in fiction, and encouraged the writing of fantasy. Many of the writers used Christian themes, though the group was not a strictly Christian organization. Its most regular members included noted authors Tolkien, Lewis, Charles Williams, and Hugo Dyson.”
