The Company They Keep

C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien as Writers in Community

By: Diana Pavlac Glyer

Narrated by: Bev Kassis

The Company They Keep is the first and most complete examination of the Inklings and their close literary collaboration. C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien met each week with a community of fellow writers at Oxford in the 1930s and 1940s, all sharing their works-in-progress. Diana Pavlac Glyer invites readers into the heart of the group, examining diary entries and personal letters and carefully comparing the rough drafts of their manuscripts with their final, published work. She discoveries not only demonstrates a high level of mutual influence, but it also provides a lively and compelling picture of how writers and other creative artists challenge, correct, and encourage one another when they work together in community.

The book is published by The Kent State University Press.

Winner of the Imperishable Flame Award for Tolkien Studies and the Mythopoetic Society Scholarship Award

"I found myself captured by Glyer's engaging writing style, the breadth of her research, and the cogency of her argument. It's good, very good indeed." (Verlyn Flieger, author of Splintered Light, A Question of Time, and Interrupted Music)

"An astonishingly thorough work, lucidly and boldly illuminating the collaborative writing processes of C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien and their colleagues during the most fruitful period of their careers." (Bruce L Edwards, author of Not-a-Tame Lion, Further Up and Further In, and A Rhetoric of Reading)

©2007 The Kent State University Press (P)2017 Redwood Audiobooks

A first-rate piece of Inklings scholarship

This is a first-rate piece of Inklings scholarship. The book describes the many ways the Inklings influenced, contributed to, and collaborated on each other’s writings. The book is a response to the old myth that the Inklings had no influence on each other’s work, especially the belief that the principle Inklings works would have been exactly the way they turned out to be if there had never been an Inklings group.

The reading of the book is solid and enjoyable. Frankly it is simply a pleasurable book that I recommend to anyone, without restriction.

For those who want more, I recommend the print version. It includes 60 pages of notes that add a new dimension to the story. I like to describe it that the text provides the story but the notes are like having underground depths that can be resonated to add more depth to the text.

Finally, I recommend Bandersnatch, a smaller version of this book intended for readers who are interested in finding out about the Inklings but who don’t love everything about them. That book is also written to give the inklings as a successful collaborative writing group and provides the reader with ways of starting and maintaining a successful writing group of your own. The audio book is fine. But, the print version includes beautiful illustrations.

Bandersnatcg is such a good book that I loaned it out after I had read it to or three times. I’ve never seen it since.

To have such Friends!

I must admit I've never read or seen more than 10 minutes film of any author in this book. Just not much into pointy eared things running around forests.
What did endear me to this book was the respect and reverence of many of the authors and what was behind their success.
Diana Pavlac Glyer must be exhausted to have gone thru the many thousands of hours research to write such a cogent story about friendship.
What further moved my senses was the silken voice of narrator Bev Kassis that just pulls you into the story. It makes you feel like you are in England sitting next to the fire in a red leather chair having a good hand rolled cigar while one after another stands to read parts of their stories as the ice melts in your glass. It makes you not want to leave your chair to go to the bathroom when they painfully tell each other truthfully how bad the writing was.
This is the sign of true friendship that endures forever... the good and the bad and all the ugliness!
A must read for anyone that has an "inkling" of wanting to write. Defiantly in my top 10 and I will probably listen to this book at least a couple more times this year. I think I might have to get a hard copy also...

Absolutely splendid

Top-notch scholarship and down-to-earth discoveries mark this splendid read. Dr. Glyer's insights into the creative dynamics of friendship and authorship are compelling, inspiring, and overall thoroughly enjoyable. Delivered excellently in audiobook format.

worthwhile

Surprised that it kept me engaged. Convincing evidence but more so the dynamics of the group