This solid and scholarly biography explores the byways of literary history with much verve and energy ... Lindop has provided a fascinating account

Philip Hensher, Spectator

Lindop has added significantly to our knowledge of the Third Man in the Inklings and deftly filled in some major blank areas in our standard map of literary modernism.

Kevin Jackson, Literary Review

excellent biography

London Review of Books

[a] fine, thoroughly researched book.

Tablet

ground-breaking, and must play a central part in future Williams studies.

David Barratt, The Glass

thorough biography

Journey

fascinating reading ... meticulous study ... This biography puts Williams back in the picture

Andy Ffrench, Oxford Times

a fascinating, and even astonishing biography

Theology

Grevel Lindop's biography of Charles Williams is, in almost every way, all that one would want in such a study: comprehensive, judicious, sympathetic, but also properly surprised by its subject, for good and ill.

Rowan Williams, Journal of Inkling Studies

His prose style has benefitted from long years of listening to the musicality of language: his sentences are clear and competent, his narrative skill evident, his storytelling ability considerable. It is this last quality, in combination with his meticulous scholarship, that makes The Third Inkling masterful.

Sørina Higgins, Journal of Inkling Studies

Lindop's exhaustive research and clarity of presentation make this an indispensable volume for anyone who wishes to understand Williams and come to terms with his writing and influence. No future study of Williams will be adequate without drawing on this study; Lindop deserves much praise for bringing to completion such a massive endeavour.

Holly Ordway, Journal of Inkling Studies

Lindop's narrative, packed with incident and parcelled into satisfying arcs, is exemplary

Oxford Today

Grevel Lindop has written a ground-breaking life, at once scholarly and readable, which reveals Williams in all his fascination ... Lindop has done a real service in showing not only why his writing had such an appeal for Tolkein, Lewis, and Eliot, but how it can still jolt us into deeper reflection today.

The Rt Revd Lord Harries, Church Times

the definitive biography ... .a brilliant introduction to a brilliant, yet very troubled and troubling, man

Evangelical Times

an authoritative, and extremely readable, biography.

Sydney Morning Herald

The Third Inkling is a very readable book which wears its meticulous research lightly - and that's no mean feat. It raises some important and troubling questions.

A Writer's Life

a fascinating, and even astonishing biography.

Theology

well-written biography

Notre Dame magazine

wonderful biography

Network Review

As a work of biographical scholarship, then, The Third Inkling leaves nothing to be desired.

The Oddest Inkling

a thorough, profound, and sympathetic study

A.N Wilson, First Things

an excellent biography, taking its place as the premier resource on Williams

The Notion Club Papers

It is obviously a well-researched labor of love ... It is a dense book but reads easily, especially for those who admire the work of Williams and his contemporaries ... Lindop has accomplished a Herculean feat by depicting this controversial man within the context of English history.

Nancy Saultz Radloff, Anglican and Episcopal History