The Inklings and Friends
Oxford, C.S.Lewis, J.R.R.Tolkien and Friends
Eustace, Smaug and Gordon Gecko
“There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it.” The opening sentence of C.S.Lewis’ The Voyage of the Dawn Treader must rank among the best opening lines of literature….”It was [...]
Hobbit Holes and the Holy
Once upon a time a professor of philology, (that is to say, a lover of language), was daydreaming in his university rooms when he scribbled on the back of an anonymous exam paper, “In [...]
Communicating with C.S.Lewis
“Have you heard? Father Longenecker advocates having seances and communicating with the dead!” So it might be assumed from the title of this article: “Communicating with C.S.Lewis.” Am I really huddled over a [...]
Digory’s Severe Mercy
Those who are familiar with the biography of C.S.Lewis will recognize in his Narnia chronicle, The Magician’s Nephew a moving self portrait. The hero of the story is a boy named Digory. When he [...]
The Little Way Through Middle Earth
‘In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.’ Tolkien admitted that he wrote these words absentmindedly on the back of an exam paper he was marking. Such spontaneous inspiration suggests the work [...]
Frodo Baggins and St Therese
The Little Way Through Middle Earth is a long article I wrote some time ago for Stratford Caldecott's journal, Second Spring. I have uploaded it here, and over the weeks ahead plan to start publishing [...]