From an "Outsider"

From an "Outsider" is the title of a memoir written by James Dundas-Grant and originally published in C.S. Lewis at the Beakfast Table and Other Reminiscences (1979). Although foremostly a recollection of his teacher C.S. Lewis, Dundas-Grant also recalls memories of J.R.R. Tolkien. They first met at Lewis's rooms in Oxford in 1944:

"It was thus I came to meet [C.S. Lewis's] great friend Tolkien: tall, swept-back grey hair, restless. He read to us parts of his manuscript for The Lord of the Rings, asking for criticism."

― "From an 'Outsider'"

After World War II, Dundas-Grant joined the Inklings at the Eagle and Child:

"We met every Tuesday morning over a glass of beer. Warnie, [C.S. Lewis's] brother, was there; MacCallum of Pembroke; Father Gervase Mathew, O.P., from Blackfriars; Tolkien of Merton and Havard. Others came and went. We sat in a small back room with a fine coal fire in winter. Back and forth the conversation would flow. Latin tags flying around. Homer quoted in the original to make a point. And Tolkien, jumping up and down, declaiming in Anglo-Saxon."

― "From an 'Outsider'"

After the death of Lewis, Dundas-Grant finally recalls that he attended a Mass in memory of Lewis, together with Tolkien and Robert Havard.

References

• James Dundas-Grant, "From an 'Outsider'", in Remembering C.S. Lewis: Recollections of Those Who Knew Him
• David Bratman, "Dundas-Grant, James (1896–1985)", J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia