Possession, A Romance
A. S. Byatt
511 pages

Roland Michell finds two drafts of letters in a book by the Victorian author Randolph Henry Ash which he's researching and which appear to have been written by Ash himself. These letters appear to have been written to a female poet and Roland is intrigued enough to take the letters and try and find out what happened. What started out as a mild curiousity turns into a major obsession and drags various other people with it.

In the course of the book the relationship between Ash and the poet, Christabel La Motte is slowly revealed, through letters, fragments of poetry, extracts from longer works and diary entries. This has its effects on the life of Roland, which had been in a rut until then but now opens up and leads to his own romance.

This is a very well written and fascinating book, even if the subject matter looks incredibly dull.