Hailed by The New York Times Book Review as "a gifted observer, able to discern the exact details that bring whole worlds into being" and "a storyteller who could keep a sultan on the edge of his throne for a thousand and one nights," A. S. Byatt writes some of the most engaging and skillful novels of our time. Time magazine calls her "a novelist of dazzling inventiveness."
Possession, for which Byatt won England's prestigious Booker Prize, was praised by critics on both sides of the Atlantic when it was first published in 1990. "On academic rivalry and obsession, Byatt is delicious. On the nature of possession--the lover by the beloved, the biographer by his subject--she is profound," said The Sunday Times (London). The New Yorker dubbed it "more fun to read than The Name of the Rose . . . Its prankish verve [and] monstrous richness of detail [make for] a one-woman variety show of literary styles and types." The novel traces a pair of young academics--Roland Michell and Maud Bailey--as they uncover a clandestine love affair between two long-dead Victorian poets. Interwoven in a mesmerizing pastiche are love letters and fairytales, extracts from biographies and scholarly accounts, creating a sensuous and utterly delightful novel of ideas and passions.
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
"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 the two Victorian writers the pair has dedicated their lives to studying: Randolph Ash, a literary great long assumed to be a devoted and faithful husband, and Christabel La Motte, a lesser-known "fairy poetess" and chaste spinster. At first, Roland and Maud's discovery threatens only to alter the direction of their research, but as they unearth the truth about the long-forgotten romance, their involvement becomes increasingly urgent and personal. Desperately concealing their purpose from competing researchers, they embark on a journey that pulls each of them from solitude and loneliness, challenges the most basic assumptions they hold about themselves, and uncovers their unique entitlement to the secret of Ash and La Motte's passion.
Winner of the 1990 Booker Prize--the U.K.'s highest literary award--Possession is a gripping and compulsively readable novel. A.S. Byatt exquisitely renders a setting rich in detail and texture. Her lush imagery weaves together the dual worlds that appear throughout the novel--the worlds of the mind and the senses, of male and female, of darkness and light, of truth and imagination--into an enchanted and unforgettable tale of love and intrigue. --Lisa Whipple
From the Back Cover:
"Byatt is the most formidably equipped of contemporary novelists. . . . The great merit of [her] writing . . . is that it continually engages the reader's mind."
---The Daily Telegraph
"This cerebral extravaganza of a story zigzags with unembarrassed zest across an imaginative terrain bristling with symbolism and symmetries, shimmering with myth and legend, and haunted everywhere by presences of the past. . . . Possession is eloquent about the intense pleasures of reading. And, with sumptuous artistry, it provides a feast of them."
---The Sunday Times (London)
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Book Description Vintage Publishing, United Kingdom, 2011. Paperback. Condition: New. Language: English. Brand new Book. The perfect gift for Valentine's DayPossession is an exhilarating novel of wit and romance, at once a literary detective novel and a triumphant love story. It is the tale of a pair of young scholars investigating the lives of two Victorian poets. Following a trail of letters, journals and poems they uncover a web of passion, deceit and tragedy, and their quest becomes a battle against time. Seller Inventory # AAZ9780099503927
Book Description Random House, 2009. Condition: New. pp. 528. Seller Inventory # 6430674
Book Description Vintage Classics, 2007. Paperback. Condition: New. Paperback. Possession is an exhilarating novel of wit and romance, at once a literary detective novel and a triumphant love story. It is the tale of a pair of young scholars investigating the lives o.Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability. 624 pages. 0.400. Seller Inventory # 9780099503927
Book Description Random House 2007-08-02, London, 2007. paperback. Condition: New. Language: ENG. Seller Inventory # 9780099503927
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Book Description Vintage Classics, 2007. Paperback. Condition: Brand New. 528 pages. 7.80x5.12x1.18 inches. In Stock. Seller Inventory # __0099503921
Book Description Vintage Classics, 2009. Condition: New. 2007. 01st Edition. Paperback. Tells the tale of a pair of young scholars investigating the lives of two Victorian poets. This book features a trail of letters, journals and poems they uncover a web of passion, deceit and tragedy, and their quest becomes a battle against time. Num Pages: 528 pages. BIC Classification: FA. Category: (G) General (US: Trade). Dimension: 198 x 129 x 32. Weight in Grams: 374. . . . . . Books ship from the US and Ireland. Seller Inventory # V9780099503927
Book Description Vintage Classics, 2007. Condition: New. 2007. 01st Edition. Paperback. Tells the tale of a pair of young scholars investigating the lives of two Victorian poets. This book features a trail of letters, journals and poems they uncover a web of passion, deceit and tragedy, and their quest becomes a battle against time. Num Pages: 528 pages. BIC Classification: FA. Category: (G) General (US: Trade). Dimension: 198 x 129 x 32. Weight in Grams: 374. . . . . . Seller Inventory # V9780099503927
Book Description Vintage Classics, 2009. Paperback. Condition: New. BRAND NEW ** SUPER FAST SHIPPING FROM UK WAREHOUSE ** 30 DAY MONEY BACK GUARANTEE. Seller Inventory # mon0000192495