Winner of The Irish Times-Aer Lingus International Fiction Prize 1990.

          "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" … POSSESSION will be the sensation of the year."       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"       Times Literary Supplement

          "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 … She is ripening into our best novelist"       Evening Standard