Charles Williams (Charles Walter Stansby Williams) Biography

British novelist, poet, and man of letters, born in London. With C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien, with whom he formed the Inklings group, he was the major author of fantasy in the twentieth century. His novels, which often reflected a Christian ideology, have been described as supernatural thrillers. Each of the seven tales—War in Heaven (1930), Many Dimensions (1931), The Place of the Lion (1931), The Greater Trumps (1932), Shadows of Ecstacy (1933), Descent into Hell (1937), and All Hallows Eve (1944)—presents in theological terms a quest through complexly occult circumstances for a goal similar to the Grail, in whose numinous glow the plots tend to dissolve. As a poet he is best known for his cycle on the Arthurian legend, Taliessin through Logres (1938), The Region of the Summer Stars (1944), and Arthurian Torso (1948) with a commentary by C. S. Lewis. His most important theological writing was The Descent of the Dove (1939). He also wrote plays, biographies, and literary criticism, notably The Figure of Beatrice: A Study in Dante (1943). See Thomas T. Howard's The Novels of Charles Williams (1983).