Fiction

In the 1950s the English children’s writer Philippa Pearce created a fictionalised version of Cambridge known as “Castleford” (not connected to the real town of the same name in West Yorkshire). It appears in several of her books, most notably Tom’s Midnight Garden and Minnow on the Say. The main distinguishing point between “Castleford” and the real Cambridge is that this “Castleford” does not have a university, apparently because the author wanted the readers to think of the town in itself, and she felt that Cambridge was too closely associated with its university in the public imagination for this to be possible.

Tom Sharpe is also a Cambridge-based author who has written fictional accounts of teaching at Cambridge Technical College (now Anglia Ruskin University) and of Cambridge college life.

Susanna Gregory wrote a series of novels set in 14th-century Cambridge and featuring a teacher of medicine and sleuth named Matthew Bartholomew.

Douglas Adams was at one time a resident of Cambridge, and parts of his novel Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency are set in the city. This novel was partially reworked from his untransmitted Doctor Who serial Shada, which also included scenes in Cambridge.

Sylvia Plath wrote a number of short stories with a Cambridge setting which are published in the collection Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams.