Fiction Literature Courses
Study online & in London

Oscar Wilde was the most controversial writer of late Victorian Britain. He was famed for his wit, extravagant lifestyle, and sexual adventures. His plays and his sensational novel The Picture of Dorian Gray were celebrated and admired. But his scandalous trial and conviction “for gross indecency with men” ruined him, and he ended his life in Paris, destitute and alone. His dramatic trial marked a turning point in British attitudes to sex and culture.

Join us to read and discuss a selection of novels from the 1950s and 1960, in English and in translation, some of which, like Stan Barstow’s powerful story of upward mobility A Kind of Loving and Ngugi Wa Thiongo’s poignant portrait of unrest in Kenya Weep Not, My Child, have rarely been out of print. Some are recent rediscoveries, such as Han Suyin’s story of forbidden romance in wartime London, Winter Love, and Chingiz Aitmatov’s delicate Kyrgyz fable, Jamilia. Fresh translations of Magda Szabo’s Iza’s Ballad and Tove Ditlevsen’s autobiographical coming of age story,Youth, are also included.



NB. This course will have a break week on Wednesday 29 May.

Novels that fit all their action into just one day (‘circadian novels’) have been penned by some of literature’s most esteemed authors. This course focuses on three novels which use the one-day structure to tell their stories: Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway (1925), Mollie Pater-Downes’s One Fine Day (1947), and Michael Cunningham’s The Hours (1999). It explores how they portray the inner life of characters, at the same time as engaging with broader social issues of the time.

Who were considered the ‘Best of Young British Novelists’ in 1983, and what became of them? What do their styles and topics reveal about the decade, looking back from 40 years on? Read extracts by all twenty writers plus novels by Pat Barker, Graham Swift and Julian Barnes.

Explore classic texts of 19th century French and Russian literature, discussing literary style, themes, and contexts as a way of developing and sharing responses to celebrated European writing. Among the French writers examined will be Stendhal, Baudelaire, Flaubert and Rimbaud, with our Russians including Pushkin, Lemontov, and Tolstoy.

Enjoy talking with other people about the things you have read? Want to share great stories, poems and drama? Come along and join the conversation. The group is led by a shared reading practitioner trained by The Reader Organisation.

This online course focuses on innovative short fiction from around the globe which reworks folkloric traditions to grapple with conditions of twenty-first century life. As well as engaging with the unique folkloric influences each text draws on, we’ll consider the complexities of the present that they are addressed to – and how the rising popularity of ghost stories, fairy tales, dark fables and surreal myths suggests a renewed fascination with the intrigues of the mysterious, monstrous and inexplicable.



This course will be delivered online. See the ‘What is the course about?’ section in course details for more information.

What’s the unique appeal of historical fiction? Why do we read it, and what are we looking for? This course investigates historical fiction written in the twenty-first century and how it reimagines the past for us as contemporary readers. Reading novels and short stories set in the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, we’ll explore historical fiction’s strategies, challenges and pleasures: how it can bring unknown stories into view and rewrite what we think we know. Includes Francis Spufford's Golden Hill (2016), Emma Donoghue's The Woman who Gave Birth to Rabbits (2002) and Maggie O'Farrell's Hamnet (2020).

The 2016 referendum result was one of the most significant events in recent British history. How can novels, written in that moment, shed light on the run-up to the vote and its immediate aftermath?



On this course we’ll study three fascinating and powerful novels, by Ali Smith, Anthony Cartwright and Adam Thorpe, exploring their stories and the backdrop they present of Britain’s divisions and connections.



This course will be delivered online. See the ‘What is the course about?’ section in course details for more information.

What sells crime novels? Does knowing about the detective's other life make readers appreciate or rate their detective skills more? Why does the figure of the male detective remain so dominant in the genre, especially given that many of the texts are by female authors? We will analyse and the discuss the development of the male detective figure in recent crime fiction, including 'A certain Justice' by P.D. James, 'In the Woods' by Tana French and 'Career of Evil' by Robert Galbraith.

Discuss a selection of novels written by women in contemporary British society. Focusing on the 21st century, we consider the concerns of fiction in grappling with representing the now. We will make links between literary texts and social context to consider how fiction might be influenced by and influencing the real world beyond its covers. Texts include Bernardine Evaristo's Mr. Loverman (2013), Jenni Fagan's The Panopticon (2013) and Ali Smith's Hotel World (2002).



This course will be delivered online. See the ‘What is the course about?’ section in course details for more information.

The beautiful city of Venice has attracted writers as diverse as Marcel Proust and Thomas Mann, Ezra Pound and Jeanette Winterson. These writers eulogised Venice as a city of art and culture, praising its gorgeous Gothic palaces and shimmering waters. In this course we look behind the myth, exploring the fascinating and surprising stories behind these Venetian visions.

Join us to explore three works of life writing set in Paris and Berlin between the wars, where café culture, the adventure of the streets, bohemian life, and nocturnal temptations offer opportunities for artistic, personal, and sexual freedom. Set in post-WW1 Paris and pre-WW2 Berlin, writers, artists, and adventurers find themselves entangled within the moving fabric of unpredictable social and political changes. Writers include Ernest Hemingway, Jean Rhys and Christopher Isherwood.