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. Her 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.