Fund King Arthur's Return!

In 2013, a previously-unpublished work by J.R.R. Tolkien appeared: "The Fall of Arthur," his only explicitly Arthurian writing.  The publication of this extraordinary poem revealed subtle connections between "The Matter of Britain" and the rest of JRRT's legendarium, and thus invited an examination of the theological, literary, historical, and linguistic implications of the Arthurian writings of all the major Inklings: C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, Charles Williams, and Owen Barfield. It became immediately obvious that a scholarly study of these works was necessary. 

"The Inklings and King Arthur" fills that gap. It is an edited essay collection that examines the Arthurian works of Tolkien, Lewis, Williams, Barfield, their predecessors, and their contemporaries. It offers exciting, rigorous analytical perspectives on a wide range of the Inklings' Arthurian and related works, contributing essential material to the academic field. 

"The Inklings and King Arthur" is ready for publication, but permissions fees must be paid to the copyright holders of the works quoted in the collection. While the estates and publishers have been extremely generous and considerate, charging only small fees, they are still beyond my personal resources or those of my publisher. If you would like to see this book in print, please consider contributing. Your donation will enable us to pay the permissions fees and move toward publication. Help bring back King Arthur! 

This book brings together established, well-known scholars and emerging voices. It employs many theoretical perspectives and interacts with a wide variety of important conversations. To give you a taste of the intellectual delights of this volume, here is the table of contents of "The Inklings and King Arthur": 

Introduction—Present and Past: The Inklings and King Arthur. Sørina Higgins
1. The Matter of Logres: Arthuriana and the Inklings. Sørina Higgins
2. Medieval Arthurian Sources for the Inklings: An Overview. Holly Ordway.
3. Mixed Metaphors and Hyperlinked Worlds: A Study of Intertextuality in C. S. Lewis’s Ransom Cycle. Brenton D. G. Dickieson.
4. Houses of Healing: The Idea of Avalon in Inklings Fiction and Poetry. Charles A. Huttar
5. Shape and Direction: Human Consciousness in the Inklings’ Mythological Geographies. Christopher Gaertner
6. From Myth to History and Back Again: Inklings Arthuriana in Historical Context. Yannick Imbert
7. “All Men Live by Tales”: Chesterton’s Arthurian Poems. J. Cameron Moore.
8. The Elegiac Fantasy of Past Christendom in J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Fall of Arthur. Cory Grewell
9. Spiritual Quest in a Scientific Age. Jason Jewell and Chris Butynskyi
10. The Stripped Banner: Reading The Fall of Arthur as a Post-World War I Text. Taylor Driggers
11. “Lilacs Out of the Dead Land”: Narnia, The Waste Land, and the World Wars. Jon Hooper
12. “What Does the Line along the Rivers Define?”: Charles Williams’s Arthuriad and the Rhetoric of Empire. Benjamin D. Utter
13. “Fair as Fay-woman and Fell-minded”: Tolkien’s Guinever. Alyssa House-Thomas
14. Beatrice and Byzantium: Sex and the City in the Arthurian Works of Charles Williams. Andrew Rasmussen.
15. Those Kings of Lewis’s Logres: Arthurian Figures as Lewisian Genders in That Hideous Strength. Benjamin Shogren. 
16. “Servant of All”: Arthurian Peregrinations in George MacDonald. Kirstin Jeffrey Johnson.
17. Camelot Incarnate: Arthurian Vision in the Early Plays of Charles Williams. Bradley Wells
18. “Any Chalice of Consecrated Wine”: The Significance of the Holy Grail in Charles Williams’s War in Heaven. Suzanne Bray. 
19. The Acts of Unity: The Eucharistic Theology of Charles Williams’s Arthurian Poetry. Andrew C. Stout
Conclusion—Once and Future: The Inklings, Arthur, and Prophetic Insight. Malcolm Guite.

Please consider funding "The Inklings and King Arthur" today!