List of fictional Oxford colleges
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Fictional colleges are perennially popular in modern novels, allowing the author much greater license when describing the more intimate activities of an Oxford college. Such institutions are often home to eccentrics or miscreants, murderers or snobs, and though wistfully romantic in their cloistered courts, host fictional events that could prove libellous were identifiable institutions used.
Below is a list of some of the fictional colleges of the University of Oxford.
- All Saints College - North and South, Elizabeth Gaskell
- Baillie College - Yes Minister and Yes, Prime Minister (a very thinly veiled reference to Balliol)
- Bartlemas College - Kate Ivory detective novels, Veronica Stallwood
- Bede College - Operation Pax, Michael Innes (pseudonym of J. I. M. Stewart)
- Beaufort College - Inspector Morse TV series
- Beaumont College - Inspector Morse novels, Colin Dexter
- Biblioll College - Jude the Obscure, Thomas Hardy (based on Balliol College; the thinly fictionalized Oxford is identified as Christminster)
- Brazenface College - Verdant Green, Cuthbert Bede
- Cardinal College - A Yank at Oxford (based on Christ Church)
- Charsley College - The Casual Ward, A. D. Godley
- Courtenay College - Inspector Morse TV series (based on Oriel College)
- Foxe College - His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman (based on Corpus Christi College)
- Gabriel College - His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman
- Hacker College - The Complete Yes Minister
- Jordan College - His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman (loosely based on Exeter College)
- Judas College - Zuleika Dobson, Max Beerbohm
- 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, Anthony Trollope
- Lonsdale College - Inspector Morse novels, Colin Dexter
- Rubric College - Jude the Obscure, Thomas Hardy
- St Ambrose's College - Tom Brown at Oxford, Thomas Hughes (probably based on Oriel)
- St Christopher's College - The Case of the Gilded Fly and The Moving Toyshop, Edmund Crispin
- St George's College - Yes Minister
- St Mark's College - Patrick Grant crime novels, Margaret Yorke and The Stars' Tennis Balls, Stephen Fry
- St Mary's College - Sinister Street, Compton Mackenzie (note that New College and Oriel College are both dedicated to St Mary)
- St Mary's College - The Poison Tree, Tony Strong (based on St Peter's)
- St Michael's College - His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman
- St Sexburga's College - Horace Sippog and the siren's song, Su Walton
- St Sophia's College - His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman
- St Thomas' College - An Oxford Tragedy and The Case of the Four Friends, John Cecil Masterman
- Sarcophagus College - Jude the Obscure, Thomas Hardy
- Scone College - Decline and Fall, Evelyn Waugh
- Shrewsbury College - Gaudy Night, Dorothy L. Sayers (Women's college, probably based on Somerville)
- Surrey College - A Staircase in Surrey, a quintet of novels by J. I. M. Stewart
- Warlock College - Landscape with Dead Dons, Robert Robinson
- Wolsey College - Inspector Morse novels, Colin Dexter (based on Christ Church)
