Charles Williams: The Third Inkling

Williams was overshadowed in the years following his death in 1945 by C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien%E2%80%94fellow members of the Oxford-based literary group the Inklings%E2%80%94but he gets his due in this exhaustively researched biography from Lindop (Travels on the Dance Floor). Williams's formal education ended at 17, but he read omnivorously and rose rapidly at Oxford University Press from proofreader to editor. A tireless workaholic, Williams also wrote novels, plays, essays, tracts, and reams of verse in his spare time, much of it steeped in Christian theology and concerned with the relationship between the spiritual and the sexual%E2%80%94what he referred to as "the Church system and the love system." Williams's complex, original vision brought him to the attention of Lewis in 1936 and made him a perfect fit with Lewis's circle of fellow academics and writers. Lindop does a masterful job of relating Williams's expansive bibliography to his intellectual passions and his messy personal life, which was frequently complicated by platonic love affairs with the young female coworkers he mentored. Readers interested in learning more about a writer whose work was highly regarded by T.S. Eliot and W.H. Auden, among others, will find Lindop's book an informative and accessible introduction. (Dec.)