Charles Walter Stansby Williams (1886-1945) attended St Albans School followed by the University of London in 1901, but a lack of funding limited his studies to two years. Subsequently, he found work in the Methodist Book Room. In 1908, he gained a post as a reader at the London office of Oxford University Press in Amen House, where he would later write play scripts for his colleagues.

Inspired by Dante, and with an interest in the church, Williams wrote several spiritually-themed novels, and Arthurian poetry based on the idea of romantic love as a way to God; a love he experienced in his marriage to Florence Sarah (Michal) Conway. They had one son, Michael Stansby Williams, in 1922.

Charles Williams gained the friendship of C.S. Lewis in 1936 after exchanging letters of mutual respect for each other's writings. Consequently, when Williams moved to Oxford with the University Press upon the outbreak of the Second World War, he was invited to join the 'Inklings', a literary discussion group including Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien.

While in Oxford, Williams took up tutoring and lectured for the English Faculty, earning him an honourary MA in 1943. Williams remained in Oxford until his death in 1945. His prolific writing career also included religious services, theology, literary criticism, biography, and theatre.

Phyllis Jones (1901-2001) met Charles Williams at Oxford University Press where she began work as the librarian in 1924. Their intense relationship is recorded in their letters in which Charles is 'Urban' and Phyllis 'Celia' or 'Phyllida'. She inspired Williams' 'Century of Poems for Celia' (Oxford, Bodleian Libraries, MS. 16125/3) written in 1926-1927. In 1934 Phyllis married William Somervaille and lived in Java until 1938 when the marriage broke down. In 1939 she married Archibald McDougall.