Possession: A Romance

Possession: A Romance

by A S Byatt (Author), A S Byatt (Author), A S Byatt (Author)

Synopsis

"Literary critics make natural detectives", says Maud Bailey, heroine of a mystery where the clues lurk in university libraries, old letters and dusty journals. Together with Roland Michell, a fellow academic and accidental sleuth, Maud discovers a love affair between two Victorian writers. Booker Prize, 1990. Film stars Gwynneth Paltrow.

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More Information

Format: Paperback
Pages: 511
Edition: 1st
Publisher: Vintage
Published: 01 Jan 1991

ISBN 10: 009943184X
ISBN 13: 9780099431848

Media Reviews
It is a great, shaggy, generous, polysyllabic, triple-decker beast of a book and I haven't read anything in an age I've enjoyed so much. Nor have I sat into the small hours turning the pages of a manuscript in execrable computer print, with such risk to my eyes, already weakened, weakened still further by the Swiss lights because I simply had to get to the end of it. It is the mixture of ideas, cunning, fairy tales, humour - the clever way she interweaves natural history, romance, poems, porches, table tapping and even, I think, Rapunzel; and it is also so funny, in two centuries, at once! I believe it's the best thing she has done. Christabel and Ash, Roland and Maud come off the page bewitchingly. -- Christopher Hope
A massive, complex story about a literary mystery which turns into an emotional voyage of discovery... The novel is a triumphant success on every level - as a critique of Victorian poetry, an unbearably moving love story and a satire on the modern 'Biography Industry'. -- Cosmopolitan
Byatt has contrived a masterly ending to a fine work; intelligent, ingenious and humane, Possession bids fair to be looked back upon as one of the most memorable novels of the 1990s. -- TLS
It is a great, shaggy, generous, polysyllabic, triple-decker beast of a book and I haven' t read anything in an age I' ve enjoyed so much. Nor have I sat into the small hours turning the pages of a manuscript in execrable computer print, with such risk to my eyes, already weakened, weakened still further by the Swiss lights because I simply had to get to the end of it. It is the mixture of ideas, cunning, fairy tales, humour - the clever way she interweaves natural history, romance, poems, porches, table tapping and even, I think, Rapunzel; and it is also so funny, in two centuries, at once! I believe it' s the best thing she has done. Christabel and Ash, Roland and Maud come off the page bewitchingly. -- Christopher Hope
A massive, complex story about a literary mystery which turns into an emotional voyage of discovery... The novel is a triumphant success on every level - as a critique of Victorian poetry, an unbearably moving love story and a satire on the modern ' Biography Industry' . -- Cosmopolitan
Byatt has contrived a masterly ending to a fine work; intelligent, ingenious and humane, Possession bids fair to be looked back upon as one of the most memorable novels of the 1990s. -- TLS
Author Bio
A. S. Byatt was educated in York and at Newnham College, Cambridge, and taught at the Central School of Art before becoming a full-time writer. She was appointed CBE in 1990 and DBE in 1999.