in fiction as early as 1400 when Chaucer, in Canterbury Tales, referred to a "Clerk [student] of Oxenford". Mortimer Proctor argues the first campus novel was The Adventures of Oxymel Classic, Esq; Once an Oxford Scholar (1768). It is filled with violence and debauchery, with obnoxious, foolish dons becoming easy prey for cunning students. Proctor argues that by 1900, "novels about Oxford and Cambridge were so numerous that they clearly represent a striking literary phenomenon." By 1989, 533 novels based in Oxford had been identified and the number continues to rise.
Famous literary works range from Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh, which in 1981 was adapted as a television serial, to the trilogy His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman, which features an alternate-reality version of the university and was adapted for film in 2007 and as a BBC television series in 2019.
Other notable examples include:
Zuleika Dobson (1911) by Max Beerbohm, a satire about undergraduate life.
Gaudy Night (1935) by Dorothy L. Sayers, herself a graduate of Somerville College, a Lord Peter Wimsey mystery novel.
The Inspector Morse detective novels (1975–1999) by Colin Dexter, adapted for television as Inspector Morse (1987–2000), the spin-off Lewis (2006–2015), and the prequel Endeavour (2012–2023).
True Blue (1996), a film about the mutiny at the time of the Oxford-Cambridge Boat Race of 1987.
The History Boys (2004) by Alan Bennett, alumnus of Exeter College, a play about a group of grammar school boys in Sheffield in 1983 applying to read history at Oxford and Cambridge. It premiered at the National Theatre and was adapted for film in 2006.
Posh (2010), a play by Laura Wade, and its film adaptation The Riot Club (2014), about a fictionalised equivalent of the Bullingdon Club.
Testament of Youth (2014), a drama film based on the memoir of the same name written by Somerville alumna Vera Brittain.
Notable non-fiction works on Oxford include Oxford by Jan Morris.
== See also ==
== Notes ==
== References ==
=== Citations ===
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