Initiated in 1931, a group of authors began coming together weekly to read their manuscripts and other works. This literary society included several notable names, such as C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien. The company would meet at Lewis’s dorms in Magdalen, one of the wealthier segments of the University of Oxford, and spend their Thursday nights recounting new tales and gauging the responses of present company.
Two years later, when the group was no longer official, they moved their meetings to a new, informal location. So it was that the famous authors sat in a private lounge known as the Rabbit Room in the back of a pub known as The Eagle and Child. Every Tuesday at midday the group gathered, having as much merriment as sobriety of discussion.
One game often played was to see who could read the famously awful poetry of Amanda McKittrick Ros the longest without breaking into laughter.
Many famous tales were shared in the company of The Inklings, and out of those sessions came such beloved works as Out of the Silent Planet, Lord of the Rings, and The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe.