Literature Courses in London
Explore our exciting range of Literature courses, from Literary History, to specialist courses in Fiction, Poetry and Drama. We offer introductory and in-depth courses to suit all levels of interest and experience, where you can revisit classic texts and discover new writers.
Study in-person or online from the comfort of home, with classes that allow you to participate in discussions with fellow adult students and share your passion for literature as part of a learning community. We offer daytime, evening and weekend courses, both short and long.
Our tutors are experts in their fields and experienced educators; many also teach in universities or share their expertise in the media. Tutors share their knowledge and passion for fiction, poetry and drama through presentations, readings, interactive discussion, analysis, and other activities.
Many students return to take more courses, telling us they enjoy being part of our City Lit literary community; others are inspired to progress onto university study.
Our popular courses often sell out quickly, so we invite you to browse and book your place now.
- London in WritingCourse start date: Tue 13 May 2025
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Kate WilkinsonCome and explore London in writing! On this course we’ll study fiction and non-fiction texts about London. Contemporary perspectives on the city include two recent novels: Happiness by Aminatta Forna and Light Perpetual by Frances Spufford.Full fee £119.00 Senior fee £119.00 Concession £77.00 - In Conversation with Hallie Rubenhold
Course start date: Wed 14 May 2025Location on this date: Keeley Street
Join us at City Lit for an event with Hallie Rubenhold to celebrate her new book, Story of a Murder: The Wives, The Mistress and Dr Crippen. Hosted by City Lit Principal Mark Malcomson CBE, the conversation will focus on Hallie's feminist retelling of the infamous true-crime story of Dr Crippen. The event includes an audience Q&A, followed by a drinks reception and book signing.
Full fee £10.00 Senior fee £10.00 Concession £10.00 - Fairytales RemadeCourse start date: Wed 21 May 2025
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Fiona McCullochThis online course introduces a selection of fairy tales from the First Golden Age of Children’s Literature, occurring in the latter half of the 19th century until the early 20th century. We will focus upon L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900), J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan (1911), George McDonald’s The Princess and the Goblin (1872), and Charles Kingsley’s The Water-Babies: A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby (1863).Full fee £199.00 Senior fee £199.00 Concession £129.00 - Fixity and Flux: poetry in motionCourse start date: Mon 2 Jun 2025
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Suzannah V. EvansCome and revel in the sheer variety and possibility of poetic form, as we consider how form might shape what a writer has to say and how they say it. This course will allow you to explore the many shapes that a poem can take.Full fee £129.00 Senior fee £129.00 Concession £84.00 - Writing MotherhoodCourse start date: Tue 3 Jun 2025
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Rebecca JonesExplore the extraordinarily diverse world of writing about motherhood, looking at literary texts that have firmly rebuked any notions of motherhood as ‘merely’ domestic, and have instead made it the subject of serious literary writing, have explored major themes such as the body, trauma, gender, queerness, race and creativity, and have written diverse truths about the realities of motherhood. Writers include Toni Morrison, Adrienne Rich and Rachel Cusk, Maggie Nelson and Ayò¿bámi Adébáyò¿.Full fee £119.00 Senior fee £95.00 Concession £77.00 - Literary Landscapes: Black London in Caleb Nelson’s Open Water and Sam Selvon’s The Lonely LondonersCourse start date: Thu 26 Jun 2025
Location on this date: Online
Black London is shifting and ever-evolving. This course explores how Costa award winning Caleb Nelson’s novel ‘Open Water’ and the great 1950’s classic of immigrant fiction, Sam Selvon’s ‘The Lonely Londoners’ reimagined our multicultural metropolis.Full fee £79.00 Senior fee £79.00 Concession £79.00 - An Introduction to 21st century British drama and societyCourse start date: Mon 30 Jun 2025
Location on this date: Online
This online course offers an introduction to the concept of the 21st century British dramatist as a social observer, enabling a deeper understanding of how playwrights can illuminate and comment on social issues. Join us to find out how playwrights Polly Stenham, Jez Butterworth and Phillip Ralph have interrogated a variety of societal ills including a miscarriage of justice, dependency issues, class and the façade of contentment amongst the upwardly mobile.Full fee £19.00 Senior fee £19.00 Concession £12.00 - City Lit evening reading groupCourse start date: Mon 22 Sep 2025
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Claire AllenShare thoughts and ideas about what you are reading, with books chosen by the group. Please come to the first session with suggestions (contemporary literary fiction in paperback) and having read 'The Wren, The Wren' by Anne Enright. We meet on the following dates: 22/9, 20/10, 24/11, 12/1, 16/2, 16/3, 11/5, 8/6, 6/7.Full fee £189.00 Senior fee £189.00 Concession £123.00 - British Literature of the 1930s: Brits AbroadCourse start date: Tue 23 Sep 2025
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Lewis WardOn this in-college literature course we will explore what some of the most significant British authors of the period did and thought on their travels, real and imagined, in the decade leading up to World War II. Authors include Graham Greene, Christopher Isherwood, Jean Rhys and George Orwell.Full fee £179.00 Senior fee £179.00 Concession £116.00 - Nineteenth century French fictionCourse start date: Mon 29 Sep 2025
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Megan BeechPassion, marriage, crime, class, and murder: these are just some of the key issues at play in the three exhilarating French novels we will discuss in this online course. Focusing on George Sand’s Indiana (1832), Balzac’s Père Goriot (1835) and Zola’s Thérèse Raquin (1868), we’ll explore French literary style and the influence of serialisation on sensation fiction and these author’s depictions of social class, romance, and realism.Full fee £179.00 Senior fee £179.00 Concession £116.00 - Solitude in fiction and memoirCourse start date: Tue 30 Sep 2025
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Kate WilkinsonThis online literature course explores representations of solitude in recent fiction and memoir. Reading twentieth- and twenty-first-century texts, we’ll consider experiences of solitude across rural and urban settings, from remote islands to crowded cities. How is solitude shaped by places, culture, gender, age and technology?Full fee £179.00 Senior fee £179.00 Concession £116.00 - Ways into Advanced Literature: the dawning of modernityCourse start date: Wed 1 Oct 2025
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Patricia SweeneyFor those who want to explore the rewards of in-depth literary study, focusing on fiction and drama. Read, analyse and debate works that reflect the cultural and historical changes in a shifting world, exploring three seminal works of the modern age: Three Sisters (1900) by Anton Chekhov, The Good Soldier (1915) by Ford Madox Ford and The Age of Innocence (1920) by Edith Wharton.Full fee £199.00 Senior fee £199.00 Concession £129.00 - Queens of Crime: Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. SayersCourse start date: Thu 2 Oct 2025
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: William BradyAgatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers dominated the inter-war Golden Age of British detective fiction and continue to this day to beguile and enthral readers with their intricate plotting, fiendish twists and formidable detectives. This course critically explores how both authors shaped the detective genre, the publishing history of some of their most celebrated works, and how Christie and Sayers navigated themes of class, gender, morality and justice. Through selected readings, discussions and analysis, we will explore the literary significance and enduring appeal of these Queens of Crime.Full fee £149.00 Senior fee £149.00 Concession £97.00 - Poetry of the Troubles: Seamus Heaney and his ContemporariesCourse start date: Fri 3 Oct 2025
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Lewis WardOn this in-college literature course we will read Seamus Heaney’s North (1975), his first collection to deal explicitly with the Troubles in Northern Ireland, alongside poems on the same theme by contemporaries including Michael Longley, Seamus Deane and Derek Mahon. - Reflecting the Nation: 21st Century British Drama & SocietyCourse start date: Mon 6 Oct 2025
Location on this date: Online
This course explores how dramatists use their position as commentators to reflect the societal and political issues affecting the nation. Drawing on texts by Laura Wade, Jez Butterworth, Roy Williams and others, we’ll discuss how issues such as class, national identity, queer and black lives, and activism have been interrogated by Britain’s finest contemporary playwrights.Full fee £179.00 Senior fee £179.00 Concession £116.00
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