Possession: A Romance

From Freepedia

Possession: A Romance is a 1990 novel by British author A. S. Byatt, which won the Booker Prize in that year. It is probably Byatt's best-known and most popular work.

Surprisingly for a bestselling novel, Possession concerns quite intellectual subject matter. The plot follows two modern scholars, Roland Michell and Maud Bailey, who examine old documents to discover the truth about a possible relationship between two Victorian poets, Randolph Ash and Christabel LaMotte. These poets are fictitious, but Byatt wrote pastiches of Victorian poems and included them in the novel, passing them off as Ash's and LaMotte's work. Ash writes dramatic monologues in blank verse, like Robert Browning, while LaMotte's style owes much to Emily Dickinson and Christina Rossetti.

The novel incorporates many different styles and voices: diaries, letters and poetry, in addition to third-person narration. Possession is as concerned with the present day as it is with the Victorian era, pointing out the differences between the two time periods and poking fun at such things as modern academia and mating rituals.

Possession was later adapted into a film of the same name.