For three decades, C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and their closest associates—the Inklings—met every week in Lewis's Oxford rooms and in nearby pubs to discuss literature, religion, and ideas; read aloud from works in progress; and take philosophical rambles in the woods. Offering a warm and colorful group portrait, Philip and Carol Zaleski show Lewis accepting Jesus Christ while riding in the sidecar of his brother's motorcycle, and Tolkien transmuting his immense erudition into The Lord of the Rings, while poet Charles Williams turns his everyday life into a mystical pageant. Romantics who scorned rebellion, fantasists who prized reality, the Inklings sought to revitalize literature and faith in the 20th century's darkest years, and did so in dazzling style.