How Charles Williams Indirectly Saved Lord of the Rings

J. R. R. Tolkien blamed two events for the end of his intimate friendship with C. S. Lewis: “We were separated first by the sudden apparition of Charles Williams, and then by his marriage [to Joy Davidman],” he explained. While Tolkien was well aware of the debt that his The Lord of the Rings owed to Lewis’s constant encouragement, it’s unclear whether Tolkien ever realized the debt he owed to Williams, the very man who had displaced his friendship with Lewis.