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.
- Poetry from the EdgeCourse start date: Mon 12 May 2025
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Laurie SmithSome poets began their writing lives, and sometimes lived much of them, outside the 'normal' modern urban lives which most of us experience. They have lived at the margins and despite - or perhaps because of - their geographic, political or emotional isolation, they have become major poets. We will look at how each has achieved national and international success with their poetry. Poets include C P Cavafy, Stevie Smith, Derek Walcott, Seamus Heaney and Bob Dylan.Full fee £229.00 Senior fee £183.00 Concession £149.00 - 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 - Reading Shakespeare: a director's perspective - A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Henry IV Part 1Course start date: Wed 14 May 2025
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Laura BaggaleyTake a fresh look at Shakespeare, exploring selected plays in the company of an experienced theatre director. With performance in mind, we will examine the language and themes of Henry IV Part I and A Midsummer Night's Dream, and discuss the extraordinary variety to be found in Shakespeare's work.Full fee £199.00 Senior fee £159.00 Concession £129.00 - Leonard Cohen: song, poetry, prose and personaCourse start date: Thu 15 May 2025
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Richard NilandThis class explores the work of Leonard Cohen, examining his poetry, song, prose and persona in the context of the literary and musical traditions that shaped his art. We delve into Cohen’s meditations on life and the modern world through his absorption and reworking of a rich range of cultural influences.Full fee £169.00 Senior fee £135.00 Concession £110.00 - Ways of reading: aspects of narrative theoryCourse start date: Fri 16 May 2025
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Jenny StevensWhat do we mean by ‘literary fiction’? What expectations do we bring to the novels we read? Do we really ‘escape’ when we enter fictional worlds? These are just some of the questions addressed in a course which focuses on the analysis of prose fiction. Reading texts as short as one-sentence ‘flash fiction’ to complete short stories, it engages with writing from a wide range of periods and authors, paying close attention to narrative techniques and their effects. - Apocalypse London: the city in dystopian fiction - 1880-1974Course start date: Fri 16 May 2025
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Sarah WiseExplore representations of London in works of dystopian/science fiction, written between the 1890s and the 1970s. Our authors will include HG Wells, John Wyndham, George Orwell and Nigel Kneale.Full fee £169.00 Senior fee £169.00 Concession £110.00 - Modern Women PlaywrightsCourse start date: Wed 21 May 2025
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Laura BaggaleyExplore seminal modern plays by three leading women playwrights – Caryl Churchill, Timberlake Wertenbaker and Moira Buffini – who are all known for groundbreaking and innovative dramatic work.
In the company of an experienced theatre director, examine the different theatrical visions of three exciting plays.Full fee £199.00 Senior fee £199.00 Concession £129.00 - Poets of the Silver Age, the Revolution and the TerrorCourse start date: Fri 13 Jun 2025
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Stephen WinfieldThis course will look, decade by decade, at the leading figures of the generation caught up in the turmoil of the Revolution whose lives and poetry together form a veritable seismograph of the unfolding tragedy. Their extraordinary interrelationships and the originality and power of their writing constitute one of the richest periods in the history of Russian Literature.Full fee £119.00 Senior fee £95.00 Concession £77.00 - Edith Wharton, Henry James and the Decoration of HousesCourse start date: Sat 14 Jun 2025
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Phyllis RichardsonEdith Wharton and Henry James had a keen eye for a well-designed and tastefully decorated house and both brought us depictions of splendid interiors in their novels set in ‘the Gilded Age’. We’ll discuss the changing tastes at the turn of the century, and how both authors used interior decoration to reflect the moral turn of their characters and the age.Full fee £69.00 Senior fee £55.00 Concession £45.00 - Modern American SatireCourse start date: Wed 18 Jun 2025
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Alexander Fairbairn-DixonCome and explore the work of three pioneering American satirists of the inter-war years. Ranging from sharp, dry, bitter irony to macabre laughter, the precise insights of Dorothy Parker, Nathanael West, and Sinclair Lewis still resonate with modern readers. We’ll look at their dissection of society, considering their critiques of social aspiration, snobbery, status anxiety, and The American Dream.Full fee £169.00 Senior fee £135.00 Concession £110.00 - Demystifying PoetryCourse start date: Sat 21 Jun 2025
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Whether you are new to poetry or an experienced reader of verse, this course will enable and enhance your enjoyment by exploring the techniques that poetry uses to affect our response and create meaning. Exploring rhythm and rhyme, voice, mood, imagery, language and allusions, we will focus on a diverse range of poetic examples to examine how this powerful form of literature works to create emotion and connection with the reader.Full fee £69.00 Senior fee £55.00 Concession £45.00 - Christopher and his Kind: Christopher Isherwood in BerlinCourse start date: Fri 27 Jun 2025
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Jake PollerThe experience of living in Berlin in the early 1930s had a transformative effect on the life and work of Christopher Isherwood. In this course, we will discuss Isherwood’s masterpiece, Goodbye to Berlin (1939), and his autobiography Christopher and His Kind (1976), which reveals the real people behind the characters of Sally Bowles and Otto Nowak, and shines a light on the queer culture of Berlin Isherwood was unable to write about in the 1930s.Full fee £49.00 Senior fee £39.00 Concession £32.00 - Landmark Poetry: places and spacesCourse start date: Sat 28 Jun 2025
Location on this date: Keeley Street
What is the role of poetry ‘off the page’ in public spaces? Can a poem change the way we might re-encounter cultural history? Do statues serve as ‘informants’ from the past? We read poetry by Jackie Kay, Lemn Sissay and Dorothea Smartt commissioned for bridges, pavements, monuments, even super sewer ventilation shafts to identify the challenges, revisions and celebrations that emerge from exploring the place of poetry in public spaces.Full fee £69.00 Senior fee £55.00 Concession £45.00 - The Best of Contemporary PoetryCourse start date: Fri 4 Jul 2025
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Lewis WardOn this in-college literature course we will take the temperature of the contemporary poetry scene through close readings from the 'Forward Book of Poetry 2025', which showcases poems from the best collections recently published in the UK and around the world.Full fee £119.00 Senior fee £95.00 Concession £77.00 - Gender, Desire and the Body in PoetryCourse start date: Tue 8 Jul 2025
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Ranging from sixteenth century love sonnets via bawdy Restoration verse to a Victorian eroticised poetic narrative, this course examines how the language of love and desire, and the poetic representations of gendered bodies, provide an idiom that can be used to express both conservative and more subversive cultural ideas.Full fee £79.00 Senior fee £63.00 Concession £51.00
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