List of fictional Cambridge colleges
Overview
 
Fictional colleges are perennially popular in modern novels, allowing the author much greater licence when describing the more intimate activities of a Cambridge
Cambridge
The city of Cambridge is a university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It lies in East Anglia about north of London. Cambridge is at the heart of the high-technology centre known as Silicon Fen – a play on Silicon Valley and the fens surrounding the...

 college and a way of placing events that might not be permitted by actual Cambridge geography.

Below is a list of some of the fictional colleges of the University of Cambridge
University of Cambridge
The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...

.
  • All Saints College - Mentioned briefly in Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency
    Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency
    Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency is a humorous fantasy detective novel by Douglas Adams, first published in 1987. It is described by "the author" on its cover as a "thumping good detective-ghost-horror-who dunnit-time travel-romantic-musical-comedy-epic".The book was followed by a sequel,...

     by Douglas Adams
    Douglas Adams
    Douglas Noel Adams was an English writer and dramatist. He is best known as the author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which started life in 1978 as a BBC radio comedy before developing into a "trilogy" of five books that sold over 15 million copies in his lifetime, a television...

     and in Dreaming of the Bones by Deborah Crombie
    Deborah Crombie
    Deborah Crombie is an American author of the Duncan Kinkaid / Gemma James mystery series set in the United Kingdom. Crombie was raised in Texas and has lived in the United Kingdom...

  • Bishop Weblog's College - Featured in NST IA Biology of Cells 2007 and 2008 Practical Examination Papers, and is usually the subject of some microorganism based conundrum that students must solve.
  • Brakespeare College - Manalive
    Manalive
    Manalive is a book by G. K. Chesterton detailing a popular theme both in his own philosophy, and in Christianity, of the 'holy fool', such as in Dostoevsky's The Idiot and Cervantes' Don Quixote.-Plot summary:...

    by G. K. Chesterton
    G. K. Chesterton
    Gilbert Keith Chesterton, KC*SG was an English writer. His prolific and diverse output included philosophy, ontology, poetry, plays, journalism, public lectures and debates, literary and art criticism, biography, Christian apologetics, and fiction, including fantasy and detective fiction....

  • Bursill Hall - Named after a lecturer in History of Maths.
  • Coli College - Featured in an NST IA Biology of Cells Practical Class during Lent term 2008-10, which was apparently suffering from an outbreak of food poisoning caused by a virulent strain of a mysterious bacterium
    Escherichia coli
    Escherichia coli is a Gram-negative, rod-shaped bacterium that is commonly found in the lower intestine of warm-blooded organisms . Most E. coli strains are harmless, but some serotypes can cause serious food poisoning in humans, and are occasionally responsible for product recalls...

    .
  • Fisher College - The Cambridge Murders by Dilwyn Rees, situated between real-life St John's College
    St John's College, Cambridge
    St John's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college's alumni include nine Nobel Prize winners, six Prime Ministers, three archbishops, at least two princes, and three Saints....

     and Trinity College
    Trinity College, Cambridge
    Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Trinity has more members than any other college in Cambridge or Oxford, with around 700 undergraduates, 430 graduates, and over 170 Fellows...

    .
  • Haworth College - Dr Rose Fenemore in Stormy Petrel by Mary Stewart
    Mary Stewart
    Mary Florence Elinor Stewart is a popular English novelist, best known for her Merlin series, which straddles the boundary between the historical novel and the fantasy genre.-Career:...

     is described as the College's English tutor, though most of the novel is set on the Isle of Mull
    Isle of Mull
    The Isle of Mull or simply Mull is the second largest island of the Inner Hebrides, off the west coast of Scotland in the council area of Argyll and Bute....

    .
  • Lancaster College - various books by Simon Raven
    Simon Raven
    Simon Arthur Noël Raven was an English novelist, essayist, dramatist and raconteur who, in a writing career of forty years, caused controversy, amusement and offence...

    .
 
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