"Possession" by A S Byatt

A penniless literary researcher discovers a love letter from the Victorian poet whose biography he is working on to another Victorian poetess. He and a lady lecturer trace the details of an unknown and illicit Victorian love affair. What happened and why?

Despite acres of Victorian allusive poetry, pregnant with myth, and a whole chapter of letters from poet to poetess, mostly discussing nothing, this book draws you in. But oh how shallow the modern world appears and how unromantic our couplings and uncouplings are compared with the enforced chastities and unconsummated desires of the past.

A mystery but also a satire on the obsessions of the modern biography industry.

Delightful. The winner of the Booker Prize in 1990

This review was written by the author of Motherdarling  and The Kids of God

November 2011; 511 pages