A. S. Byatt

possession

About us

About Us (Header 4)

Kate-Atkinson

James-Baldwin

Marian-Keyes

haruki-murakami-320×320-1

Richard-Osman

Malorie Blackman

Lisa-Jewell

Charlie-Mackesy

Authors (Header 3)

Children&#039;s

Company

Discover

Fiction

Non-fiction

Penguin Classics

Penguin Shop (Header 5)

Useful links

Work with us

The Bell

Selected Stories from the Booker Prize Winner

Medusa’s Ankles

Angels And Insects

A Novel

The Shadow of the Sun

The Biographer's Tale

The Game

Selected Writings

Passions Of The Mind

Portraits In Fiction

The Children's Book

Still Life

Babel Tower

A Whistling Woman

The Virgin in the Garden

Fortuny and Morris in Life and at Work

Peacock and Vine

Possession

A Stone Woman (Storycuts)

Body Art (Storycuts)

Raw Material (Storycuts)

The Pink Ribbon (Storycuts)

The Thing in the Forest (Storycuts)

Penguin Shop: 3 Clothbound Classics for £33

Teeming with more ideas than a year's worth of ordinary novels

This is a novel for every taste: a heartbreaking Victorian love story, a take-no-prisoners comedy of contemporary academic life, and an unputdownable supernatural mystery. You turn the last page feeling stunned and elated, happy to have had the chance to read it

Possession is eloquent about the intense pleasures of reading. And, with sumptuous artistry, it provides a feast of them

As always, Byatt wields beautiful prose, and the mix of prose and poetry gives the book a sensuality as mysterious as anything in the plot

Intelligent, literary, and ambitious...combines the drive of the thriller with the 19th-century novel, and throughout she threads the poetry and passion of ''romance''....races to a riotous final scene of storms and graveyards

Proves that a serious, intricate book can also be a page turner...manifest intelligence, subtle humor and extraordinary texturing of the past within the present make Possession original and unforgettable

Shimmers with something close to genius ... If I become famous enough to be the castaway on Desert Island Discs, this is the book I'd choose. It requires effort but, trust me, it is a modern masterpiece

[AS Byatt’s] exhilarating genius came into its own with Possession

Possession perfectly demonstrated that she was more than capable of humour and of spinning the sort of yarn that would keep her readers feverishly turning the pages

A novel in which Byatt’s heady talent triumphantly comes into its own

A Romance

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 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. 
 
WINNER OF THE BOOKER PRIZE

Reissued with a beautiful new illustrative cover, this Booker Prize-winning novel of romance, literary history, intrigue and high drama is a modern classic

'Shimmers with something close to genius... it is a modern masterpiece' Daily Mail 
 
Rediscover the classic Booker Prize-winning novel of romance, history, intrigue, and high drama. 
 
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 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. 
 
'A novel for every taste... You turn the last age and feel stunned and elated, happy to have the chance to read it' Washington Post 
 
'A triumphant success on every level' Cosmopolitan

A.S. Byatt (1936-2023) was a novelist, short-story writer and critic of international renown. Her novels include Possession (winner of the Booker Prize 1990), the Frederica Quartet and The Children’s Book, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction. She was appointed CBE in 1990 and DBE in 1999, and was awarded the Erasmus Prize 2016 for her ‘inspiring contribution to life writing’ and the Pak Kyongni Prize 2017. In 2018 she received the Hans Christian Andersen Literature Award.

Possession

A Romance

Format:

Buy the book from:

A triumphant success on every level

Teeming with more ideas than a year's worth of ordinary novels

This is a novel for every taste: a heartbreaking Victorian love story, a take-no-prisoners comedy of contemporary academic life, and an unputdownable supernatural mystery. You turn the last page feeling stunned and elated, happy to have had the chance to read it

Possession is eloquent about the intense pleasures of reading. And, with sumptuous artistry, it provides a feast of them

Our best novelist

As always, Byatt wields beautiful prose, and the mix of prose and poetry gives the book a sensuality as mysterious as anything in the plot

Intelligent, ingenious and humane

Intelligent, literary, and ambitious...combines the drive of the thriller with the 19th-century novel, and throughout she threads the poetry and passion of ''romance''....races to a riotous final scene of storms and graveyards

Proves that a serious, intricate book can also be a page turner...manifest intelligence, subtle humor and extraordinary texturing of the past within the present make Possession original and unforgettable

Shimmers with something close to genius ... If I become famous enough to be the castaway on Desert Island Discs, this is the book I'd choose. It requires effort but, trust me, it is a modern masterpiece

About A. S. Byatt

Follow penguin

Follow ladybird

Follow puffin

Sign up to the Penguin newsletter