"Literary critics make natural detectives", says Maud Bailey, heroine of a mystery where the clues lurk in university libraries, old letters and dusty journals. Together with Roland Michell, a fellow academic and accidental sleuth, Maud discovers a love affair between the two Victorian writers the pair has dedicated their lives to studying: Randolph Ash, a literary great long assumed to be a devoted and faithful husband, and Christabel La Motte, a lesser- known "fairy poetess" and chaste spinster. At first, Roland and Maud's discovery threatens only to alter the direction of their research, but as they unearth the truth about the long- forgotten romance, their involvement becomes increasingly urgent and personal. Desperately concealing their purpose from competing researchers, they embark on a journey that pulls each of them from solitude and loneliness, challenges the most basic assumptions they hold about themselves, and uncovers their unique entitlement to the secret of Ash and La Motte's passion.

Winner of the 1990 Booker Prize, Possession is a gripping and compulsively readable novel. A.S. Byatt exquisitely renders a setting rich in detail and texture. Her lush imagery weaves together the dual worlds that appear throughout the novel--the worlds of the mind and the senses, of male and female, of darkness and light, of truth and imagination--into an enchanted and unforgettable tale of love and intrigue. --Lisa Whipple

拜雅特（A.S.Byatt），英国当代著名作家，1936年8月24日出生于英国谢菲尔德，1957年在剑桥大学获学士学位，经过两年研究生生活后，在伦敦大学教授英美文学。1983年，拜雅特辞去高级教师职位，专心致力于文学创作，同年成为英国皇家文学协会会员、1990年获颁大英帝国司令勋童（CBE）。

拜雅特主要有长篇小说《太阳的阴影》（1964）、《游戏》（1968）、《庭院少女》（1978）、《平静的生活》（1985），以及中短篇小说集《夜莺之眼》等。、她的作品因处于大众阅读和严肃阅读之间，常常引起评论界和读者的剧烈争论。但是，因其文学功底的博大精深、作品架构的宏阔气魄、情节的奇绝、文字的精巧，又常常令人惊叹之余，纷纷放弃争论，1990年，《隐之书》横空出世，一扫欧美文坛多年的沉寂与呆板，引起巨大轰动，半年后该书获英文小说最高荣誉布克奖。