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.
- Crime fiction reading group
Course start date: Thu 8 Oct 2026Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Christine HawkinsAre you obsessed with reading crime fiction? You might like to join our Crime fiction reading group, where we share thoughts and ideas about what you are reading, with books chosen by the group. Please come to the first session with suggestions (crime fiction in paperback) and having read Blacktop Wasteland by S.A. Cosby. Monthly meetings take place on8/10, 12/11, 17/12, 21/1, 18/2, 25/3, 29/4, 27/5, 24/6.
Full fee £199.00 Senior fee £199.00 Concession £129.00 - Making it Modern: A Survey of 20th century poetry Course start date: Mon 12 Oct 2026
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Suzannah V. EvansWhat makes a poet modern? What is the difference between modern poetry and modernist poetry? How has modern poetry informed the work of poets writing today? Come and explore the exciting range of poetry written in the twentieth century in a supportive and energising group context.
Full fee £129.00 Senior fee £129.00 Concession £84.00 - The London 'Lowlife' in Fiction: 1889-1907 Course start date: Fri 16 Oct 2026
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Sarah WiseWe will explore the themes of poverty, politics, gender and ethnicity in London at the end of the 19th century/start of the 20th century through the eyes of writers of fiction, but also through the testimony of their non-fiction contemporaries - social investigators, government officials, journalists and philanthropists.Full fee £239.00 Senior fee £191.00 Concession £155.00 - What is a Short Story? Course start date: Sat 17 Oct 2026
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Alexander Fairbairn-DixonWhat is a short story? Come and discuss its characteristics, its length, design, mood and style. What distinguishes it from other kinds of short narrative? We’ll compare short stories to other forms, such as myths, legends, anecdotes, fabliaux, parables, fables, and ‘tales’. We’ll look at some of the greatest practitioners including Edgar Allan Poe, Katherine Mansfield, and O’ Henry.
Full fee £79.00 Senior fee £63.00 Concession £51.00 - Journeys to the Underworld Course start date: Tue 20 Oct 2026
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Linda GrantThe katabasis or journey into the underworld is a standard element of many classical texts. This course explores what this journey and the return to the world above means in a selection of Greek and Roman texts with examples taken from mythological poetry, epic, and Athenian drama. We will also look at how later writers (Joseph Conrad, Margaret Atwood, Elena Ferrante) adopt and adapt this trope using it to explore colonialism, feminism and motherhood.Full fee £239.00 Senior fee £191.00 Concession £155.00 - An introduction to poetry Course start date: Sat 24 Oct 2026
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Suzannah V. EvansCome and revel in the possibilities of expression and form offered by poems across time, guided by lively group discussion and tutor expertise.Full fee £79.00 Senior fee £63.00 Concession £51.00 - Demystifying Poetry Course start date: Tue 3 Nov 2026
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Linda GrantWhether 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 £39.00 Senior fee £31.00 Concession £25.00 - Reading Shakespeare: A Winter's Tale - five Acts, five WeeksCourse start date: Wed 4 Nov 2026
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Claire AllenInterested in spending time familiarising yourself with Shakespeare? Join this five-week course to explore his late play, The Winter’s Tale, taking it one act at a time.
Full fee £159.00 Senior fee £127.00 Concession £103.00 - 'Looking Straight at the world': Pat Barker's fictional visionCourse start date: Wed 4 Nov 2026
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Fiona McCullochThis course will introduce and discuss the fiction of distinguished British author, Pat Barker, delving into her first novel and a later work as a means of considering her premise that ‘looking straight at the world is part of your duty as a writer’. Hailing from the Northeast of England, Barker unflinchingly depicts situations and characters that pull no punches as she looks the world straight in the eye. In doing so, she offers readers who wish to accompany her, at times, a mirror reflecting what polite society’s gaze often evades or a window into a bleaker outlook.
Full fee £139.00 Senior fee £139.00 Concession £90.00 - 20th to 21st Century War Poetry: Owen, Apollinaire and Trakl to Akhmatova and DarwishCourse start date: Thu 5 Nov 2026
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Stephen WinfieldExplore the astonishing range of poetic responses to a hundred years of warfare, acts of witnessing, endurance, defiance and condemnation by writers across the globe: Sassoon and Wilfred Owen in Britain, Apollinaire, Brecht, Milosz, Celan, Akhmatova and Stepanova in Europe and Russia, Darwish and Zhadan in the Middle East and Ukraine, and many others. How do they describe the indescribable? High art or doggerel, what does it matter once the bombs start to fall?
Full fee £139.00 Senior fee £111.00 Concession £90.00 - Women with a View: Memoirs and TalesCourse start date: Thu 12 Nov 2026
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Patricia SweeneyDiscover and explore extraordinarily rich memoirs and tales from renowned contemporary women writers, including Rebecca Solnit, JoanDidion and Margo Jefferson.
Full fee £189.00 Senior fee £151.00 Concession £123.00 - The Monstrous Body in Contemporary FictionCourse start date: Thu 12 Nov 2026 (and 1 other date)
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Katie GossIn this literature course we will read, analyse and discuss a variety of contemporary fiction that give innovative representations of the body and its myriad forms of monstrosity. Since Mary Shelley’s seminal text Frankenstein, the unruly powers of non-conforming, hybrid bodies and identities have been a mainstay of women’s writing and queer literature, both within and beyond horror, science-fiction and fantasy genres. Through comparative analysis and class discussion we will focus on how representations of the body in contemporary fiction by female and queer authors from around the world surface new cultural anxieties and modes of resistance.
Full fee £169.00 Senior fee £169.00 Concession £110.00 - The Three Crowns of Italian Literature: Dante, Petrarch & BoccaccioCourse start date: Sat 21 Nov 2026
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Francesco BucciolDante, Petrarch and Boccaccio set the foundations of Italian literature taking the Tuscan vernacular and turning it into a literary language. Discover how they contributed to the shift from an essentially medieval worldview to Humanism and the Renaissance.
Full fee £79.00 Senior fee £63.00 Concession £51.00 - Borderlines of Madness in 19th century Fiction Course start date: Sat 28 Nov 2026 (and 1 other date)
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Sarah WiseWe will explore various themes related to ‘insanity’ and altered states of consciousness by examining a number of 19th-century works of fiction. Novelists and poets often had the greatest insights into the workings of the mind, and many Victorian psychiatrists cited works of fiction in their case studies. Among the authors we will cover are Charlotte Bronte, Edgar Allan Poe, Wilkie Collins, Gogol, Herman Melville and Charlotte Perkins Gilman.
Full fee £79.00 Senior fee £63.00 Concession £51.00 - A Day with T.S. Eliot Course start date: Sat 12 Dec 2026
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Suzannah V. Evans, Phyllis RichardsonCome and explore the Nobel Prize-winning poet, T. S. Eliot, in a stimulating group context where our focus will be on immersing ourselves in the language and contexts of his striking poetry.
Full fee £79.00 Senior fee £63.00 Concession £51.00
Can't see a course you want?
Add this category to your waiting list to set up alerts and we will update you when new courses are released online.
Add me to waiting list