Literary Oxford
Where Alice began, where the Inklings met, the bookshop room in the Guinness Book of Records and the library that gets a copy of every British book.
Photo: Diliff, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Oxford has more famous books attached to it than any walk can cover, so this guide keeps to places you can actually visit and stories that are documented. It starts with the library, goes to the river where Alice began, stops at the bookshop and ends with the Inklings.
At a glance
| Place | Why go | Access |
|---|---|---|
| Bodleian Library | Duke Humfrey’s Library and the Divinity School | Tours from £12.50; Divinity School £3 |
| Christ Church | Alice Liddell’s college, and the Alice window in the Hall | Ticketed college visit |
| Blackwell’s, Broad Street | The Norrington Room, and the home of OUP’s books in Oxford | Free |
| Lamb & Flag, St Giles’ | The Inklings’ last meeting place | Open |
| Eagle and Child, St Giles’ | The Inklings’ Rabbit Room | Closed since 2020, under restoration |
| The Story Museum | Stories for children and families | Tuesday to Sunday, 10am to 4.30pm |
The Bodleian
The Bodleian is a legal deposit library, entitled to a copy of every book published in the UK, and one of the oldest libraries in Europe. Most of it is for readers only, but the guided tours, from £12.50 for 30 minutes, take you into its historic rooms, including Duke Humfrey’s Library, the medieval reading room above the Divinity School. For a short visit without a tour, the Divinity School itself costs £3.
Christ Church and Alice
Charles Dodgson, who wrote as Lewis Carroll, was a mathematics don at Christ Church, and Alice Liddell was the daughter of its Dean, Henry Liddell. The story began on 4 July 1862, when Dodgson and the Reverend Robinson Duckworth rowed three of the Liddell sisters up the Isis, the Thames at Oxford, and Dodgson told them the tale he first called Alice’s Adventures Under Ground. The book was published in November 1865.
A college visit takes in the Hall, whose windows include one with Alice and characters from the books.
Blackwell’s
Benjamin Henry Blackwell opened his shop on Broad Street in 1879; it was twelve feet square. It now fills several buildings, and in 1966 it opened the Norrington Room underground: three miles of shelving across 10,000 square feet, which earned an entry in the Guinness Book of Records as the largest single room selling books. When Oxford University Press closed its High Street bookshop for good after the 2020 lockdown, it moved its Oxford display of books to the Norrington Room.
The Inklings
The Inklings, the writers’ group around C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien, met for years in the Rabbit Room of the Eagle and Child on St Giles’, on Monday or Tuesday lunchtimes. At one of those meetings in June 1950 Lewis handed round the proofs of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. The Eagle and Child has been closed since March 2020 and is being restored. In 1962 the group moved across the road to the Lamb & Flag, which is open, and met there until Lewis’s death in 1963.
Both men also had colleges. Lewis was a fellow of Magdalen from 1925 to 1954, and a night-time walk along Magdalen’s Addison’s Walk in 1931, with Tolkien and Hugo Dyson, is part of the story of his return to Christianity. Tolkien was a professor at Oxford from 1925, first of Anglo-Saxon and from 1945 of English at Merton College, until he retired in 1959.
The Story Museum
For families, the Story Museum on Pembroke Street turns books into places to explore, including the Enchanted Library and the Whispering Wood. It is open Tuesday to Sunday, 10am to 4.30pm, and closed on Mondays.
Frequently asked questions
Can I visit the Bodleian Library?
Yes, on a guided tour from £12.50, or visit the Divinity School alone for £3. Its reading rooms are for registered readers.
Where did the Alice story begin?
On a boat trip up the Isis on 4 July 1862, when Charles Dodgson told the story to Alice Liddell and her sisters.
Is the Eagle and Child open?
No. It has been closed since March 2020 and is being restored. The Lamb & Flag, where the Inklings met from 1962, is open.
Is the Oxford University Press bookshop still open?
No. It closed permanently after the 2020 lockdown; OUP’s books are now displayed in Blackwell’s Norrington Room.
Sources
- visit.bodleian.ox.ac.uk, tours
- en.wikipedia.org, Bodleian Library
- en.wikipedia.org, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
- en.wikipedia.org, Blackwell's
- thebookseller.com, Oxford University Press bookshop closes
- en.wikipedia.org, Lamb & Flag
- en.wikipedia.org, The Eagle and Child
- en.wikipedia.org, C. S. Lewis
- en.wikipedia.org, J. R. R. Tolkien
- storymuseum.org.uk, visit the Story Museum
This article was written by the Oxford Society editorial desk from the public sources listed above. We are not affiliated with the people, companies or institutions it describes.
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