 | This article needs additional citations for verification .(June 2010) |
Fictional colleges are found in many modern novels, films, and other works of fiction, probably because they allow the author greater licence for invention and a reduced risk of being accused of libel, as might happen if the author depicted unsavory events as occurring at a real-life institution. Below is a list of some of the fictional colleges of the University of Oxford.
Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials novels feature a number of fictional Oxford colleges, most notably Jordan College, [1] [2] including:[ citation needed ]
The Inspector Morse series of books by Colin Dexter is predominantly set within Oxford and its environs, including the University. Consequently, many fictional colleges are named. The derived television series, Inspector Morse , Lewis and Endeavour , continued this practice.
T=TV series
| Name | Source | Details | Filmed (College) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alfreda's College | Endeavour T: "Fugue" | Trinity | ||
| Arnold College | Inspector Morse T | |||
| Baidley College | Endeavour T: "Home" | Last episode of Season 1 | Keble | |
| Beaufort College | Inspector Morse T; Endeavour T: "Girl" | Named after Henry Beaufort, a Plantagenet royal and Chancellor of the University of Oxford from 1397 to 1399 | ||
| Beaumont College | Inspector Morse novels Inspector Morse episode ”The Last Enemy” Series 3 Episode 2 | Beaumont Street is a short street in central Oxford. One end emerges opposite Balliol's side entrance, and it extends to the front of Worcester. Beaumont Street was formerly the site of Beaumont Palace, perhaps the "location" of the college. | ||
| Benison College | Lewis, episode "Intelligent Design" Series 7 episodes 5/6 | |||
| Carlyle College | Lewis, episode "The Soul of Genius" | Exeter | ||
| Chaucer College | Lewis | Based on Merton College. Named after Geoffrey Chaucer, whose son Thomas also managed the affairs of Henry Beaufort, Oxford's Chancellor. | ||
| Courtenay College | Inspector Morse T | Based on Oriel. Nuneham Courtenay is a village 5 miles south-east of Oxford; in the 14th century, the village belonged to the influential Courtenay family. Nuneham House now belongs to the University. | ||
| Gresham College | Lewis, episode "Dark Matter" | Stand-in for Lincoln. The "Invisible College" was a group of Oxford scientists (including Robert Boyle, Robert Hooke and Christopher Wren) who went on to establish the Royal Society. The group met at Gresham College in London. | ||
| Hescott College | Endeavour T: "Confection" | Oriel | ||
| Lady Matilda's College | Lewis episode "Old, Unhappy, Far-Off Things"; Endeavour episode "Home" | Amalgamation of Lady Margaret Hall and St Hilda's | Lady Margaret Hall | |
| Lonsdale College | Inspector Morse novels and subsequent Lewis T | College attended by Endeavour Morse. | Brasenose | |
| Lovelace College | Endeavour TV series; "Game", the first episode of Season 4 | St Catherine's | ||
| Mayfield College | Lewis episode "Life Born of Fire" | Mayfield Press is based in Cowley Road; the nearest college would be Greyfriars on Iffley Road. | In and around Brasenose | |
| Penville | Lewis episode "Old School Ties" | The leader of the Oxford Union says she usually lives here; this is presumably a reference to her fictional college. | ||
| St Gerard's Hall | Lewis episode "Wild Justice" | Fictional permanent private hall Exterior of college filmed at New College, with a barn entrance in New College Lane. | St Edmund Hall and Christ Church | |
| St Jude's College | Lewis episode "Generation of Vipers" | date=November 2021}} | ||
| St Saviour's College | Inspector Morse, episode "Fat Chance" | New College | ||
| St Sebastian's College | Lewis episode "Lions of Nemea" | St Edmund Hall | ||
| Savile College | Lewis | In and around Trinity | ||
| Trevelyan College | Lewis | |||
| Wolsey College | Inspector Morse novels and Endeavour | Based on Christ Church: Cardinal Wolsey founded Christ Church. |
Thomas Hardy's novel Jude the Obscure is set in Christminster, "Wessex", a thinly fictionalized version of Oxford, and mentions the following colleges of Christminster University: [3] [4] [5]
Loss and Gain by St John Henry Newman tells the story of the conversion of Charles Reding, an Oxford student, to Catholicism. In the novel, Newman creates the following colleges:
| Name | Details |
|---|---|
| All Saints College | North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell. Stand-in for All Souls College |
| Apocalypse College | Private's Progress by Alan Hackney |
| Baillie College | Yes Minister and Yes, Prime Minister , attended by successive Cabinet Secretaries, Sir Arnold Robinson and Sir Humphrey Appleby. A very thinly veiled stand-in for Balliol; in several episodes Sir Humphrey Appleby is seen wearing a Balliol tie, and in the 2011 stage play version, Appleby is stated as having gone to Balliol, not "Baillie" |
| Bartlemas College | Kate Ivory detective novels by Veronica Stallwood. Takes its name from St Bartholomew's Chapel, which belonged to Oriel College |
| Bede College | Operation Pax by Michael Innes (pseudonym of J. I. M. Stewart). Allusion to the Old English polymath Bede, whose histories give us the account of St Hilda, from whom St Hilda's College, Oxford takes its name [9] |
| Brazenface College | Verdant Green by Cuthbert Bede. Very thinly veiled reference to Brasenose College |
| Cardinal College | A Yank at Oxford . Based on Christ Church, which was founded by Cardinal Thomas Wolsey as "Cardinal College" in 1525 |
| Clapperton College | The Oxford Virus by Adam Kolczynski. Based on Christ Church |
| Episcopus College | Where the Rivers Meet and Comedies by John Wain |
| Hacker College | The Complete Yes Minister |
| Judas College | Zuleika Dobson by Max Beerbohm. Based on Merton College. Referenced in William Peter Blatty's 1960 semi-autobiographical comic novel Which Way to Mecca, Jack? |
| The King's College | (Known as "Dick's" after its founder Richard II) – Colonel Butler's Wolf and Our Man in Camelot by Anthony Price. "The King's College" is another name for Oriel College; Richard II has no historically significant involvement with Oxford. |
| Kingsbridge College | World Without End and A Column of Fire by Ken Follett |
| Lancaster College | Incense for the Damned , a Peter Cushing horror film set partially in Oxford, based on Doctors Wear Scarlet by Simon Raven |
| Lazarus College | Barchester Towers by Anthony Trollope |
| Several novels by Angela Thirkell, beginning with Summer Half (1937) | |
| The Secret World massively multiplayer online role-playing game | |
| Magog College | A Study in Sorcery by Michael Kurland/Randall Garrett |
| Mandeville College | The Crime of the Communist, a Father Brown story by G. K. Chesterton |
| Old College | Lot No. 249 by Arthur Conan Doyle |
| Pelham College | The It Girl by Ruth Ware |
| Pentecost College | Montague Egg short story "Murder at Pentecost", in Hangman's Holiday by Dorothy L. Sayers. On the north side of Broad Street, to the east of Trinity. |
| Persephone College | Death on the Cherwell by Mavis Doriel Hay. Women's college based on St Hilda's, Hay's old college |
| Pitt College | Black Chalk by Christopher J. Yates |
| Plymouth College | North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell; alludes to Exeter College |
| Raleigh College | The Oxford Inheritance by Ann A. McDonald, and Sophomore Switch (published as Life Swap in the UK) by Abby McDonald |
| The Royal Institute of Translation | Babel, or the Necessity of Violence by R. F. Kuang. Known as Babel. Not strictly a college, as the undergraduate members of the institute live at University College, however Babel is a part of the university. |
| St Ambrose's College | Tom Brown at Oxford by Thomas Hughes. Probably based on Oriel College |
| St Bride's College | Michaelmas Term at St Bride's , by Brunette Coleman (Philip Larkin), St Bride's is recognisably based on Somerville College [10] |
| St Christopher's College | The Case of the Gilded Fly and The Moving Toyshop by Edmund Crispin. Located on the north side of St John's (Crispin's old college) at the junction of St Giles' and Banbury Road |
| St David's College | A Study in Sorcery by Michael Kurland/Randall Garrett |
| St Frideswide's College | What Men Say by Joan Smith |
| St George's College | Yes Minister television series. There was a late-medieval establishment of this name. [11] |
| St Jerome's College | Endymion Spring by Matthew Skelton: on St Giles', with echoes of Somerville College (Skelton's alma mater) |
| The Reluctant Cannibals by Ian Flitcroft (south of the High Street) | |
| St Joseph's College | Rumpole series by John Mortimer (in "Rumpole and the Younger Generation", Rumpole is said to have attended the real-life Keble College) |
| St Jude's College | Formosa by Dion Boucicault; August Folly by Angela Thirkell (also in Lewis; see above) |
| St Margaret's College | Fire and Hemlock by Diana Wynne Jones. Probably based on Lady Margaret Hall |
| St Mark's College | The Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford; Patrick Grant crime novels by Margaret Yorke; The Stars' Tennis Balls by Stephen Fry |
| St Mary's College | Sinister Street by Compton Mackenzie (based closely on Magdalen College, Mackenzie's old college, named after St Mary Magdalene) |
| The Poison Tree by Tony Strong (based on St Peter's College); and Rough Justice by Charles Edward Montague | |
| St Matthew's College | The Dimension Riders by Daniel Blythe |
| St Paul's College | Ravenshoe by Henry Kingsley |
| August Folly by Angela Thirkell | |
| St Sebastian's College | Arden St Ives books by Alexis Hall; Hut 33 |
| St Severin's College | The Late Scholar by Jill Paton Walsh using Dorothy L. Sayers' characters. On Parks Road, next to Wadham. |
| St Sexburga's College | Horace Sippog and the siren's song by Su Walton |
| St Simeon's College | Death on the Cherwell by Mavis Doriel Hay. Located approximately on the site of Lady Margaret Hall |
| St Thomas' College | An Oxford Tragedy and The Case of the Four Friends by John Cecil Masterman. St Thomas the Martyr's Church is located near Osney, and belongs to Christ Church |
| Scone College | Decline and Fall by Evelyn Waugh; Something Nasty in the Woodshed and The Great Mortdecai Moustache Mystery by Kyril Bonfiglioli, in whose novels Scone College represents Balliol College. John de Balliol was crowned king at Scone, Scotland in 1292. |
| Shrewsbury College | Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers. Women's college, based on Somerville College, Sayers' old college, but located on the site of Balliol's cricket ground in Jowett Walk [12] |
| Simon Magus College | Let Dons Delight and The Footsteps at the Lock by Ronald Knox |
| Stendell College | The Gentlemen directed by Guy Ritchie. Mickey Pearson (Matthew McConaughey) attends the college on a Rhodes Scholarship and begins selling marijuana while there |
| Tresingham College | The Oxford Virus by Adam Kolczynski. Based on Keble College |
| Warlock College | Landscape with Dead Dons by Robert Robinson |
| An unnamed college in A Staircase in Surrey , a quintet of novels by J. I. M. Stewart, based on Christ Church, but never named; Surrey is the name of a quadrangle within the fictional college |
Norman Colin Dexter was an English crime writer known for his Inspector Morse series of novels, which were written between 1975 and 1999 and adapted as an ITV television series, Inspector Morse, from 1987 to 2000. His characters have spawned a sequel series, Lewis from 2006 to 2015, and a prequel series, Endeavour from 2012 to 2023.
Detective Chief Inspector Endeavour Morse, GM, is the eponymous fictional character in the series of detective novels by British author Colin Dexter. On television, he appears in the 33-episode drama series Inspector Morse (1987–2000), in which John Thaw played the character, as well as the (2012–2023) prequel series Endeavour, portrayed by Shaun Evans. The older Morse is a senior Criminal Investigation Department (CID) officer with the Thames Valley Police in Oxford in England and, in the prequel, Morse is a young detective constable rising through the ranks with the Oxford City Police and in later series the Thames Valley Police.
Thomas Hardy was an English novelist and poet. A Victorian realist in the tradition of George Eliot, he was influenced both in his novels and in his poetry by Romanticism, including the poetry of William Wordsworth. He was highly critical of much in Victorian society, especially on the declining status of rural people in Britain such as those from his native South West England.
John Henry Newman was an English theologian, academic, philosopher, historian, writer, and poet, first as an Anglican priest and later as a Catholic priest and cardinal, who was an important and controversial figure in the religious history of England in the 19th century. He was known nationally by the mid-1830s, and was canonised as a saint in the Catholic Church in 2019.
St Hilda's College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. The college is named after the Anglo-Saxon saint Hilda of Whitby and was founded in 1893 as a hall for women; it remained a women's college until 2008. St Hilda's was the last single-sex college in the university as Somerville College had admitted men in 1994. The college now has almost equal numbers of men and women at both undergraduate and postgraduate level.
Jude the Obscure is a novel by Thomas Hardy, which began as a magazine serial in December 1894 and was first published in book form in 1895. It is Hardy's last completed novel. The protagonist, Jude Fawley, is a working-class young man; he is a stonemason who dreams of becoming a scholar. The other main character is his cousin, Sue Bridehead, who is also his central love interest. The novel is concerned in particular with issues of class, education, religion, morality and marriage.
Christminster may refer to:
Jericho is an historic suburb of the English city of Oxford. It consists of the streets bounded by the Oxford Canal, Worcester College, Walton Street and Walton Well Road. Located outside the old city wall, it was originally a place for travellers to rest if they had reached the city after the gates had closed. The name Jericho may have been adopted to signify this 'remote place' outside the wall. As of February 2021, the population of Jericho and Osney wards was 6,995.
The High Street in Oxford, England, known locally as the High, runs between Carfax, generally seen as the centre of the city, and Magdalen Bridge to the east.
The Lamb & Flag is a pub in St Giles' Street, Oxford, England. It is owned by St John's College. Historically, profits funded DPhil student scholarships. The pub lies just north of the main entrance to St John's College. Lamb & Flag Passage runs through the south side of the building, connecting St Giles' with Museum Road, where there is an entrance to Keble College to the rear of the pub.
Thomas Hardy's Wessex is the fictional literary landscape created by the English author Thomas Hardy as the setting for his major novels, located in the south and southwest of England. Hardy named the area "Wessex" after the medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom that existed in this part of that country prior to the unification of England by Æthelstan. Although the places that appear in his novels actually exist, in many cases he gave the place a fictional name. For example, Hardy's home town of Dorchester is called Casterbridge in his books, notably in The Mayor of Casterbridge. In an 1895 preface to the 1874 novel Far from the Madding Crowd he described Wessex as "a merely realistic dream country".
Inspector Morse is a British detective drama television series based on a series of novels by Colin Dexter. It starred John Thaw as Detective Chief Inspector Morse and Kevin Whately as Sergeant Lewis. The series comprises 33 two-hour episodes produced between 6 January 1987 and 15 November 2000. Dexter made uncredited cameo appearances in all but three of the episodes.
Robert Woodrow Langbaum was an American author. He was University of Virginia James Branch Cabell professor of English and American literature (1967–99) and professor emeritus from 1999.
Jude the Obscure is a British television serial directed by Hugh David, starring Robert Powell, Fiona Walker, and Alex Marshall, first broadcast on BBC Television in early 1971. It is based on Thomas Hardy's novel Jude the Obscure (1895).
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
