A Literary Guide to Oxford

Books to Read Before Visiting the City of Dreaming Spires

Jul 4, 2008 Miranda Ward

The best way to explore Oxford isn't with a guidebook--it's through the many works of literature that use the city as a backdrop, a character, or both.

Oxford is a city steeped in literary tradition. Her cloistered colleges have nurtured writers and thinkers since the University's medieval beginnings, while her famous spires and gothic towers have been the muse of verse after verse, including Matthew Arnold's "Thyrsis":

"And that sweet City with her dreaming spires," Arnold wrote, "She needs not June for beauty's heightening."

There is a timelessness about Oxford, something which transcends the move towards modernity. There is an Oxford state of mind; a way of being, and of understanding the world, that often finds expression most elegantly at the hands of novelists and cultural anthropologists, not guidebook writers. The books below represent only a partial list of Oxford texts, but they can offer the reader rare insight into the city's happenings, history, people, and essential truths.

The Classic

Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh

The quintessential nostalgic Oxford novel, all sumptuous language and sentimentality, follows tragic narrator Charles Ryder from his languid undergraduate days to his passionless middle age. "Oxford-submerged now and obliterated, irrecoverable as Lyonnesse, so quickly have the waters come flooding in-Oxford, in those days, was still a city of aquatint," Waugh writes, setting a wistful tone from the very start.

Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy

Oxford features prominently in the account of Jude Fawley's relationship with both the fickle Sue Bridehead and the city of Christminster (Hardy's name for Oxford).

Zulieka Dobson by Max Beerbohm

The invisible narrator of Beerbohm's 1911 satire, set entirely in Oxford, captures a certain kind of infatuation with the place: "Oxford! The very sight of the word printed, or sound of it spoken, is fraught for me with most actual magic," Beerbohm writes.

The Quirky

Gaudy Night by Dorothy Sayers

Sayers, herself an Oxford graduate, writes of the city, including specific destinations like the Bridge of Sighs at Hertford College, with great attention and tenderness in this Lord Peter Wimsey mystery.

The Ingenious Edgar Jones by Elizabeth Garner

Written by local author Elizabeth Garner, Edgar Jones is a well-researched piece of gothic storytelling. Dark and flowing, the tale follows young Edgar Jones' misadventures in the seamy, working-class underbelly of the University city, highlighting the gap between town and gown in the tradition of Hardy's Jude.

The Inspector Morse Novels by Colin Dexter

Dexter uses various Oxford locales as the setting for his clever mysteries. Double your pleasure by watching the much-lauded TV adaptations after.

The Real

Isolarian by James Atlee

Subtitled "a different kind of Oxford Journey," Isolarian examines Oxford's vibrant Cowley Road-oft neglected, but chock-full of diversity and modern, thriving culture. Think Brazilian jewelry shops, Moroccan delicatessens, Indian restaurants, and English pubs.

Oxford by Jan Morris

Morris' book is a lucid overview of the city; but also a great insight into the Oxford psyche. "This is a city of very strong character-too rooted to be much affected by a fall of leaves, a change of temperature or a cold in the nose," Morris writes.

The Shortlist

And if you find yourself hungering for still more Oxford literature, try some of these, in which the city of lost causes plays a substantial role:

Daniel Martin by John Fowles

His Dark Materials Trilogy by Phillip Pullman

Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome

To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis

The copyright of the article A Literary Guide to Oxford in U.K./Ireland Travel is owned by Miranda Ward. Permission to republish A Literary Guide to Oxford in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.