Mythopoeic Award Winners for Scholarship in Inklings Studies

This award is currently for books about J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and Charles Williams that make significant scholarly contributions to the study of the Inklings and their works. Books are eligible for three years after they are first published, and a finalist from a previous year that is still within this three-year window remains eligible in later years.The limitations on this award are fairly severe, as only works that relate to the three named authors are eligible for consideration. In practice half of the awards have gone to books about or by J.R.R. Tolkien, with most of the remainder going to books about C.S. Lewis, and a handful of works about Charles Williams.

Early in the award's history, some awards were given to individuals, and not to specific works, as a means of honoring them for their body of scholarship about the Inklings. The first three honorees from this category are individuals, and the last time this type of honor was handed out was 1981, when J.R.R. Tolkien's son Christopher Tolkien was recognized for his work in editing his father's many unfinished manuscripts. Since 1982, the award has been given every year, and has been given solely to individual works of scholarship.

As a side note, there have been multiple winners in two different years: 1971 and 1976. I have listed these multiple winners as having a "tie" result, but it is unclear whether these multiple winners were the result of a tie in the voting or merely the result of a decision by the selecting committee to bestow the award upon multiple winners.

1971: (tie) C.S. Kilby
          (tie) Mary McDermott Shideler
1972: Walter Hooper
1973: Master of Middle-Earth by Paul H. Kocher
1974: C.S. Lewis, Mere Christian by Kathryn A. Lindskoog

1975: C.S. Lewis: A Biography by Roger Lancelyn Green and Walter Hooper

1976: (tie) C.S. Lewis, an Annotated Checklist by J.R. Christopher and Joan K. Olstling

          (tie) Charles W.S.Williams, a Checklist by Lois Glenn
          (tie) Tolkien Criticism by Richard C. West
1981: Christopher Tolkien
1982: The Inklings by Humphrey Carpenter
1983: Companion to Narnia by Paul F. Ford

1984: The Road to Middle-Earth: How J.R.R. Tolkien Created a New Mythology by Tom Shippey

1985: Reason and Imagination in C.S. Lewis by Peter J. Schakel
1986: Charles Williams, Poet of Theology by Glen Cavaliero
1987: J.R.R. Tolkien: Myth, Morality, and Religion by Richard Purtill
1988: C.S. Lewis by Joe R. Christopher

1989: The Return of the Shadow by J.R.R. Tolkien, edited by Christopher Tolkien

1990: The Annotated Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien, annotated by Douglas A. Anderson

1991: Jack: C.S. Lewis and His Times by George Sayer

1992: Word and Story in C.S. Lewis edited by Peter J. Schakel and Charles A. Huttar

1993: Planets in Peril: A Critical Study of C.S. Lewis's Ransom Trilogy by David C. Downing

1994: J.R.R. Tolkien: A Descriptive Bibliography by Wayne G. Hammond and Douglas A. Anderson

1995: C.S. Lewis in Context by Doris T. Myers

1996: J.R.R. Tolkien: Artist and Illustrator by Wayne G. Hammond and Christina Scull

1997: The Rhetoric of Vision: Essays on Charles Williams edited by Charles A. Huttar and Peter Schakel

1998: A Question of Time: J.R.R. Tolkien's Road to "Faerie" by Verlyn Flieger

1999: C.S. Lewis: A Companion and Guide by Walter Hooper

2000: Roverandom by J.R.R. Tolkien, edited by Wayne G. Hammond and Christina Scull

2001: J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century by Tom Shippey

2002: Tolkien's Legendarium: Essays on The History of Middle-Earth edited by Verlyn Flieger and Carl F. Hostetter

2003: Beowulf and the Critics by J.R.R. Tolkien, edited by Michael D. C. Drout

2004: Tolkien and the Great War: The Threshold of Middle-Earth by John Garth

2005: War and the Works of J.R.R. Tolkien by Janet Brennan Croft

2006: The Lord of the Rings: A Reader's Companion by Wayne G. Hammond and Christina Scull

2007: The J.R.R. Tolkien Companion and Guide by Christina Scull and Wayne G. Hammond

2008: The Company They Keep: C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien as Writers in Community by Diana Pavlac Glyer, appendix by David Bratman

2009: The History of the Hobbit (Part One: Mr Baggins, and Part Two: Return to Bag-End) by John D. Rateliff

2010: Tolkien, Race and Cultural History: From Fairies to Hobbits by Dimitra Fimi

2011: Planet Narnia: The Seven Heavens in the Imagination of C.S. Lewis by Michael Ward

2012: Tolkien and Wales: Language, Literature and Identity by Carl Phelpstead
2013: Green Suns and Faërie: Essays on J.R.R. Tolkien by Verlyn Flieger
2014: Tolkien and the Study of His Sources: Critical Essays edited by Jason Fisher
2015: C.S. Lewis and the Middle Ages by Robert Boenig
2016: Charles Williams: The Third Inkling by Grevel Lindop

2017: The Fellowship: The Literary Lives of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Owen Barfield, Charles Williams by Philip Zaleski and Carol Zaleski

2018: The Inklings and King Arthur: J.R.R. Tolkien, Charles Williams, C.S. Lewis, and Owen Barfield on the Matter of Britain by Sørina Higgins

2019: There Would Always Be a Fairy Tale: More Essays on Tolkien by Verlyn Flieger

Book Award Reviews     Home