Oxford Novels

The Game, A S Byatt
Cassandra is an Oxford Don; Julia, her sister, is a bestselling novelist. They share a set of disturbing memories of a strange childhood game and of Simon, the handsome young neighbour who loved them both.
The Dead of Jericho, Colin Dexter
Morse turned the corner of Canal Street, Jericho. He hadn't planned on a second visit, but he was back as the officer in charge of a suicide investigation... Another compelling Morse mystery.
The Travelling Horn-Player, Barbara Trapido
Twenty years on, Katherine and Jonathan (Brother of the More Famous Jack) have a daughter: "mad, bad, crazy Stella". Four narrators deal withan assortment of entangled plot-lines, a running theme of Múller's poetry and a lovely collection of cruelly perfect characterisations of various subspecies of Homo oxfordensis.
Dirty Tricks, Michael Dibdin
This gripping thriller is set in contemporary Oxford. Dennis and Karen live a life of cosy respectability until a dinner guest seduces Karen, setting in motion a chain of events which leads to ruthless murder.
Jude the Obscure, Thomas Hardy
Hardy's last and most controversial novel is set for a large part in Christminster (Oxford). The parallel stories of working class Jude, rejected by the University of Christminster, and Sue Brideshead, outcast by society for her social and sexual rebellion, focus on preoccupations of the time.
Another Kind of Cinderella, Angela Huth
'Laughter in the willows', one of eleven short stories in this impressive collection, is the tale of an Oxford undergraduate's idyllic summer affair that is haunted by the ghost of a doomed romance.
The Oxford Chronicles, Melanie Jeschke
Inspirational historical/romances set around The Inklings, the famous group of Oxford writers that included C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. Book I in the series is called Inklings (2004) and Book II is Expectations (2005). Book III, Evasions, a "prequel" set in WWII Oxford will be released in July 2006.
Jill, Philip Larkin
'Jill', Larkin's first novel, is set in the Michaelmas Term at Oxford in 1940. A literary classic which provides a precise evocation of the place and astute insight into character, emotions and social nuance.
All Souls, Javier Marias
A visiting Spanish lecturer finds that Oxford "is a city in syrup, where simply being is far more important than doing, or even acting". With its sparkling observations and amusing set pieces, 'All Souls' perfectly captures the drifting rhythms of academic life.
Bleak Midwinter, Peter Millar
Two weeks before Christmas, a trainee doctor at Oxford's John Radcliffe Hospital encounters a patient with rare symptoms which may be those of the bubonic plague. Could the bacteria have been wakened from a state of dormancy?
An Instance of the Fingerpost, Iain Pears
Set in Oxford in the 1660s this remarkable novel centres around a young woman, Sarah Blundy, who stands accused of a murder. Four witnesses tell their version of events but only one reveals the extraordinary truth.
His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman
Fantasy trilogy set partly in an alternative Oxford. Young Lyra Belacqua journeys to the far North to save her best friend and other kidnapped children from terrible experiments by evil scientists. 12 year-olds and up.
The Poison Tree, Tony Strong
In the wake of a failed marriage, feisty academic Terry Williams moves to Oxford to resume her doctorate in detective fiction. But her new home was previously the scene of a savage sexual murder and the past returns to invade the present with horrific consequences.
Oxford Exit, Veronica Stallwood
The fifth year in the series of Kate Ivory mysteries, all set in Oxford. The Bodleian Libary has a serious problem; valuable books have been disappearing from its closely guarded collections. The challenge for Kate is to find out how.
Adrian Mole: The Wilderness Years, Sue Townsend
Adrian is now twenty three, going on fifty, and working for the Department of the Environment in Oxford monitoring newts. His hopelessly flawed life remains relentlessly amusing.
The Men and the Girls, Joanna Trollope
Jude and Kate have apparently found true happiness with men old enough to be their fathers. When one of their partners knocks an elderly spinster off her bicycle in the centre of Oxford a chain of events is triggered in which many suppressed discontents and fustration emerge.
Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
Charles Ryder is infatuated with the Marchmains and the privileged world they inhabit. Enchanted first by Sebastian at Oxford and then by his remote sister Julia, Charles finally comes to recognise his spiritual and social distance from them..

Other Oxford books and authors

Author	College	Specimen Work

J.R.R. Tolkien	Exeter	The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings
Rose Macaulay	Somerville	Towns of Trebizond
Dorothy Sayers	Somerville	Lord Peter Wimsey - e.g.Gaudy Night
Graham Greene	Balliol	The Quiet American
Matthew Arnold	Balliol	Scholar Gipsy
A.E. Housman	St John's	A Shropshire Lad
Philip Larkin	St John's	High Windows
Robert Graves	St John's	Goodbye to All That
De Quincey	Worcester	Confessions of an Opium Eater
Richard Lovelace	Worcester	Lucasta
Barbara Pym	St Hilda's	An Academic Question
Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch	Trinity	The White Wolf
Algernon Swinburne	Balliol	Ballad of Bulgarie
T.E Lawrence	Jesus	Seven Pillars of Wisdom
Dr. Johnson	Pembroke	English Dictionary
Thomas Lovell Beddoes	Pembroke	Death's Jest-Book
John Donne	Hertford	The Flea
Evelyn Waugh	Hertford	A Handful of Dust
John Galsworthy	New	Forsyte Saga
C. S. Lewis	Magdalen	The Chronicles of Narnia
Oscar Wilde	Magdalen	De Profundis
Walter Pater	Brasenose	Marius The Epicurean
Thomas Hughes	Oriel	Tom Brown
Sir Thomas More	St Mary Hall	Utopia
Sir Max Beerbohm	Merton	Zuleika Dobson
T.S. Eliot	Merton	The Waste Land
Charles Dodgson	Christ Church	Alice in Wonderland
Sir John Masterman	Worcester	An Oxford Tragedy
Brandon Thomas	Worcester	Charly's Aunt
Sir Compton Mackenzie	Magdalen	Sinister Street
Edmund Crispin	St John's	The Moving Toyshop
Richard Mason	New	The Drowning People, Us
Adam Thirwell	New	Politics
James Gordon Farrell	Brasenose	Troubles, The Siege of Krishanpur
Michael Innes	Christ Chrich	Operation Pax