In two breathtakingly accomplished novellas, A.S. Byatt explores the landscape of Victorian England, where science and spiritualism are both popular manias, and domestic decorum coexists with brutality and perversion.
In 'Morpho Eugenia', a shipwrecked naturalist is rescued by a family whose clandestine passions come to seem as inscrutable as the behavior of insects. In 'The Conjugial Angel,' a circle of fictional mediums finds itself haunted by the ghost of a very real historical personage.
Angels & Insects offers further proof of Byatt's prodigious powers and magical sympathy for characters who might be our great-great-grandparents.
Winner of England's Booker Prize and a literary sensation "Possession is an exhilarating novel of wit and romance, at once an intellectual mystery and a triumphant love story. As a pair of young scholars research the lives of two Victorian poets, they uncover their letters, journals, and poems, and track their movements from London to Yorkshire -- from spiritualist seances to the fairy-haunted far west of Brittany. What emerges is an extraordinary counterpoint of passion and ideas.Performed by Virginia Leishman
From the Booker Prize-winning author of Possession and The Children's Book comes an extraordinary tale, inspired by the norse myth of Ragnarok. It is read by one of Britain's best-loved actresses Harriet Walter and is the latest publication in Canongate's powerful and critically-acclaimed myth series.
A spellbinding novel, at once sweeping and intimate, that spans the Victorian era through the World War I years, and centers around a famous children's book author and the passions, betrayals, and secrets that tear apart the people she loves.
When Olive Wellwood's oldest son discovers a runaway named Philip sketching in the basement of the new Victoria and Albert Museum - a talented working-class boy who could be a character out of one of Olive's magical tales - she takes him into the storybook world of her family and friends.
But the joyful bacchanals Olive hosts at her rambling country house - and the separate, private books she writes for each of her seven children - conceal more treachery and darkness than Philip has ever imagined. As these lives - of adults and children alike - unfold, lies are revealed, hearts are broken, and the damaging truth about the Wellwoods slowly emerges. But their personal struggles, their hidden desires, will soon be eclipsed by far greater forces, as the tides turn across Europe and a golden era comes to an end.
Taking us from the cliff-lined shores of England to Paris, Munich, and the trenches of the Somme, The Children's Book is a deeply affecting story of a singular family, played out against the great, rippling tides of the day.
Glowing with narrator Virginia Leishman's finely tuned phrasing, The Djinn in the Nightingale's Eye is the perfect introduction to A.S. Byatt, an author who continues to receive international awards and acclaim. Her wondrous fairy tales are iridescent stories full of spells, marvelous creatures, and beautiful princesses. The title tale focuses on Dr. Gillian Perholt, a narratologist. The sturdy, middle-aged scholar travels the world, speaking at international conferences about the art of storytelling. She immerses herself in the study of fabulous, archetypical heroes: patient Griselda, lovely Scheherazade, brave Gilgamesh. But when she is given the fairy tale's three wishes-chances to alter her own story, the choices she makes are both timeless and surprisingly unique. A.S. Byatt, whose imaginative novels sparkle with layers of imagery and drama, focuses on the magic that is created each time a storyeller speaks. The five stories that comprise The Djinn in the Nightingale's Eye are as fascinating and finely crafted as ivory puzzles.
