Two renowned Oxford authors have been added to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.

Colin Dexter, who wrote the Inspector Morse novels, died in 2017, aged 86.

His stories were adapted for the ITV series which ran in 33 episodes from 1987 to 2000, starring John Thaw and Kevin Whately.

Oxford Mail:

John Thaw

The Inspector Morse series was followed by the TV spin-offs Lewis and Endeavour.

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The new dictionary entry says: "Colin Dexter (1930-2017) was born in Stamford, Lincolnshire, the son of a taxi driver and garage owner. After Stamford School and Cambridge, where he acquired his lifelong interest in crosswords, he became a classics teacher until increasing deafness forced him to take a job as an assistant secretary at the Oxford Delegacy of Local Examinations.

"But it was a family holiday in north Wales in 1973 that forever changed his life when – rain streaming down the windows of the rented cottage – he set himself the challenge of writing a better detective story than those left behind by previous visitors.

"In due course Last Bus to Woodstock (1975) was the first of his phenomenally successful series of Oxford-set novels featuring Inspector Morse."

Mr Dexter’s fellow Oxford resident Brian Aldiss (1925-2017), best known for his science fiction, is also featured as a new entry.

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Mr Aldiss, who lived in Headington, is best known to many as the author of the short story Supertoys Last All Summer Long, which formed the basis for the Steven Spielberg film AI Artificial Intelligence. 

Oxford Mail:

it was only after war service and while working as a bookseller for Sanders bookshop in Oxford that he began his prolific career as a published writer, initially of comical sketches for The Bookseller, but soon as a science fiction writer, anthologist, and essayist, while also working as literary editor of the Oxford Mail.

He was described by Neil Gaiman as 'always a gentleman, full of anecdotes from his years as a writer, with a blustery charm and a delight in getting people’s backs up'.