marotta%lezah.DEC@decwrl.ARPA (09/16/85)
From: marotta%lezah.DEC@decwrl.ARPA (MARY MAROTTA) There has been some discussion about J.R.R.Tolkien's background and the origin of his naming scheme in the Lord of the Rings. I would like to point interested readers to a books called The Inklings, by Humphrey Carpenter. The title of the book is taken from a club at Oxford University in England, which Tolkien, C.S.Lewis, and Charles Williams formed to share their work by reading to each other. They often had other guests and writers, and were able to discuss their writing as it developed. I think anyone who has read anything by one of these authors would find the book interesting. Carpenter tells the stories of these three authors with a special sensitivity to their different styles and helps explain what made each of these men write so differently. My copy is published by Houghton Mifflin, 1979. It's good biographical data as well as interesting reading.