Evil, Eroticism, and Englishness

Revision with unchanged content. In mid twentieth century Britain, after the experience of total war, evil was not an abstract concept but a palpable reality. How was evil understood, and how did this understanding influence notions of English national identity? This book examines the lives and works of C. S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and J.R.R. Tolkien, members of the British literary club Inklings. It probes repre-sentations of evil, Englishness, gender and the erotic in their fiction and shows specifically how their science fiction, horror, and fantasy was a response to the moral and human devastation of two world wars. The book suggests that the Inkling's middle brow literature opens a window on a wider sense of uncertainty and longing about Englishness in the eve of decolonization and decline, while showing that the philosophical and theo-logical make up of the group was more diverse than has been previousely represented.