List of fictional Cambridge colleges
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Fictional colleges are perennially popular in modern novels, allowing the author much greater license when describing the more intimate activities of a Cambridge college. Such institutions are often home to eccentrics or miscreants, murderers or snobs, and though wistfully romantic in their cloistered courts, host fictional events that could prove libellous were identifiable institutions used.
Below is a list of some of the fictional colleges of the University of Cambridge.
- Boniface College, Oxbridge - Pendennis by William Thackeray, inspired by his time at Cambridge and home to the poet Sprott.
- Fisher College - The Cambridge Murders by Dilwyn Rees, situated between real-life St John's College and Trinity College.
- Lancaster College - various books by Simon Raven. Bears more than a passing resemblance to King's College.
- Porterhouse College - Porterhouse Blue, Tom Sharpe. The name suggests Peterhouse, though it is also a pun on college porters and porterhouse steaks. It is also reputedly based loosely on Corpus Christi.
- St. Agatha's College, The Wyndham Case (1993), A Piece of Justice (1995), Jill Paton Walsh, located between Castle Mound and Chesterton Lane.
- St. Angelicus College - The Gate of Angels by Penelope Fitzgerald (1990). Situated not far from Christ's Pieces.
- St. Bartholemew's College - Nights in White Satin (1999) by Michelle Spring. Located near the police station and New Square, with murders investigated by Laura Principal of Newnham College.
- St. Bernard's College - Darkness at Pemberley, T. H. White. Loosely disguised version of Queens' College.
- St. Botolph's College - Example college in Cambridge University Computing Service documentation.
- St. Cedd's College - Various works, Douglas Adams. Based on St. John's College, the alma mater of Douglas Adams.
- St. Matthew's College - Various works by Stephen Fry.
- St. Stephen's College - For the Sake of Elena by Elizabeth George, located between Trinity College and Trinity Hall and modelled on the latter.
- Weirdsister College - Magical college in Weirdsister College – The Further Adventures of The Worst Witch
- Wetmarsh College - subject of an operetta by Mark Wainwright and Roland Anderson entitled Wetmarsh College, or, Dr Middlebottom, first staged at the ADC Theatre, Cambridge, in 2005 (Wetmarsh is never explicitly said to be in Cambridge, but Wainwright's libretto and the place of its composition and first performance make it fairly clear).
- an unnamed college in C. P. Snow's novel The Masters and other novels in the Strangers and Brothers series.