A Staircase in Surrey functions partly as a Roman à clef, with multiple allusions to thinly-veiled people and places. The College, which is not named in the novels, is very clearly based on one of Stewart's own Colleges, Christ Church, where he was Student (i.e. Fellow and Tutor) from 1949 until 1973, and University Reader in English. Surrey is modelled on Peckwater Quadrangle, which houses the College library as the novels suggest, but does not have a statue of a former Head of House (in the middle of Surrey there is a statue of Provost Harbage). The character of the Provost (Head of the College) is based on that of Henry Chadwick, Dean of Christ Church, Oxford during Stewart's own time there.Williams, Rowan, Obituary—Henry Chadwick—He was a leading Anglican scholar and strove for ecumenicalism, The Guardian, 19 June 2008. Retrieved 26 June 2008 His name is taken from that of Edward Pococke (1604–91), seventeenth century Regius Professor of Hebrew (1648–91), after whom the Pococke Tree (the inspiration for Lewis Carroll's Jabberwocky) and the Pococke Garden in Christ Church are named. The fantasy writer and Oxford don J. R. R. Tolkien appears (or is remembered) as the elderly "Professor J. B. Timbermill" in all the novels. The character of Arnold Lempriere, an ancient and semi-retired history don at the College, is based on the eccentric Christ Church Censor R. H. Dundas. Tony Mumford's title "Marchpayne" is obviously both a nod to the Marquess of Marchmain, a character in Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited (another novel partly set in Christ Church, Oxford), but also a joke on "marchpane", an old name for marzipan. Stewart makes an oblique reference to himself in Full Term: 'the other [new fellow], bald and abraded, was understood to have escaped in middle age from some professorial assignment in the antipodes' (p. 37) – Stewart had been Jury Professor of English at the University of Adelaide before obtaining his post in Christ Church.
A Staircase in Surrey functions partly as a Roman à clef, with multiple allusions to thinly-veiled people and places. The College, which is not named in the novels, is very clearly based on one of Stewart's own Colleges, Christ Church, where he was Student (i.e Fellow and Tutor) from 1949 until 1973, and University Reader in English. Surrey is modelled on Peckwater Quadrangle, which houses the College library as the novels suggest, but does not have a statue of a former Head of House (in the middle of Surrey there is a statue of Provost Harbage). The character of the Provost (Head of the College) is based on that of Henry Chadwick, Dean of Christ Church, Oxford during Stewart's own time there.Williams, Rowan, Obituary—Henry Chadwick—He was a leading Anglican scholar and strove for ecumenicalism, The Guardian, 19 June 2008. Retrieved 26 June 2008 His name is taken from that of Edward Pococke (1604–91), seventeenth century Regius Professor of Hebrew (1648–91), after whom the Pococke Tree (the inspiration for Lewis Carroll's Jabberwocky) and the Pococke Garden in Christ Church are named The fantasy writer and Oxford don J. R R. Tolkien appears (or is remembered) as the elderly "Professor J. B. Timbermill" in all the novels. The character of Arnold Lempriere, an ancient and semi-retired history don at the College, is based on the eccentric Christ Church Censor R. H. Dundas. Tony Mumford's title "Marchpayne" is obviously both a nod to the Marquess of Marchmain, a character in Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited (another novel partly set in Christ Church, Oxford), but also a joke on "marchpane", an old name for marzipan. Stewart makes an oblique reference to himself in Full Term: 'the other [new fellow], bald and abraded, was understood to have escaped in middle age from some professorial assignment in the antipodes' (p. 37) – Stewart had been Jury Professor of English at the University of Adelaide before obtaining his post in Christ Church.