When my wife, Laura, first became an academic fellow (or ‘don’) of an Oxford College, her father expressed concern for her welfare, as it was very clear from the popular Inspector Morse television series (based on the novels of Colin Dexter) that an Oxford don was at high risk of suffering a sudden and violent death, usually at the hands of a colleague! Laura and I have always shared a love of crime and mystery fiction, and in this project, which I hope will eventually comprise a comprehensive A to Z of crime and mystery fiction set in Oxford, as well as of the crime and mystery authors it has educated and inspired, and the characters they created—many of whom are also Oxford students, alumni (eg Inspector Morse, although he never completed his degree), or dons. I will also provide entries on the city, the University, and its colleges, both real and fictional (Dorothy Sayers’ Lord Peter Wimsey was a student at Balliol College, which does exist and was founded in the 13^th century, but Harriet Vane, who Lord Peter saves from the gallows in Strong Poison and marries in Busman’s Holiday, attended the fictional women’s college of Shrewsbury, which Sayers, in a prefatory note to Gaudy Night, apologetically indicates that she has situated in the Balliol cricket grounds. Sayers herself read modern languages and medieval literature at Somerville College, then a women’s college).

As Oxford continues to feature in a number of recent novels, this should be a very long-term project!

I will be taking a very broad view of ‘crime and mystery’ in this project; for example, arguably, the trilogy His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman (Exeter College, 1968), though generally thought of as fantasy/adventure, also has several mysteries (and two parallel-universe Oxfords!) at its heart. (Pullman has also penned lesser-known but still entertaining shorter novels which fall more easily into the genre of mystery and crime).  David Cornwell (Lincoln College, 1952?) better known by his pen name, John le Carré, is best known for his espionage thrillers, but the plots also often incorporate elements of crime and mystery to be investigated and solved.  His two earliest novels, Call for the Dead (1961) and A Murder of Quality (1962) both feature le Carré’s best known character, George Smiley (the name of Smiley’s Oxford College is not mentioned as far as I am aware, but is apparently ‘unimpressive’) acting as a detective in an unofficial capacity to solve murders.

So what could be better? An excuse for me to read Oxford-related crime fiction and call it research! Fellow mystery lovers’ comments or reviews of favourite Oxford-related novels and stories are all very welcome, but please avoid spoilers!

*A note on construction – as this will be my first experience of WordPress, it may take me a while to get up to speed on its many features – hopefully I will eventually master its complexities so that all the information which I hope will be available on my blogsite will be easily accessible.