Two contemporary literary scholars, Roland Michell and Maud Bailey, uncover a hidden love affair between two invented Victorian poets, Randolph Henry Ash and Christabel LaMotte, in a novel that interweaves modern academic detective work with the poets' own letters and verse.
Books mentioned in Possession (33)
Principles of Geology by Charles Lyell: “I read a chapter or two of Lyell's Principles of Geology... and was equally charmed by the intellectual gravity of Lyell's vision.”
Faust by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: “She wrote a lot about Goethe's Faust round about then.”
Jacques by George Sand: “as George Sand's Jacques says, I think a kind of softness has overcome modern life.”
White Nights by Fyodor Dostoevsky: “White Nights, by Dostoevsky out of Carroll's Alice.”
King Lear by William Shakespeare: “named after "a line in Wm Shakespeare's King Lear—'The little dogs and all—Tray, Blanche and Sweetheart, see they bark at me.'"”
As You Like It by William Shakespeare: “who's the chappie that comes down on a swing at the end of As You Like It?”
Idylls of the King by Alfred Tennyson: “demanding that the poem be taught... instead of the Idylls of the King, or Ragnarök.”
Paradiso by Dante Alighieri: “he had compared it to Dante's Paradiso, in which the saints and patriarchs and virgins sat in orderly ranks.”
Moby-Dick by Herman Melville: “Elsewhere in his chapter, almost inevitably, Cropper had quoted Moby Dick.”
The Adventures of Roderick Random by Tobias Smollett: “he remembered reading Roderick Random, an English work, full of robust and genial disgust at the human condition.”
Samson Agonistes by John Milton: “I have been reading Samson Agonistes and came upon the dragon I always thought you were.”
Silas Marner by George Eliot: “I have since read Silas Marner, the story of an old bachelor who attaches a foundling to his loom.”
The Bostonians by Henry James: “His little book on harmony and discord in The Bostonians had come at just the wrong time.”
The Reverberator by Henry James: “Henry James, the American, wrote a story or something called The Reverberator.”
The Faerie Queene by Edmund Spenser: “like Spenser's Faerie Queene, or Ariosto, where the soul is free of the restraints of history and fact.”
La Mer by Jules Michelet: “Michelet... had written four books related to the four elements—La Mer (water), La Montagne (earth), L'Oiseau (air), and L'Insecte.”
Le Chef-d'œuvre inconnu by Honoré de Balzac: “Fergus was writing a deconstructive account of Balzac's Chef-d'Oeuvre Inconnu.”
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë: “she resembles the romantic Jane Eyre, so powerful, so passionate, so observant beneath her sober exterior.”
Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen: “uncomfortably aware of the laundry lists in Northanger Abbey.”
Paradise Lost by John Milton: “may have seen Paradise Lost, in the garden where Eve recalled Pomona and Proserpina.”
Poems of John Keats by John Keats: “from Randolph Ash's will: "I should like my Shakespeare, my Poems of Keats, and Poetical Works of Lord Tennyson to go to Miss Eliza Daunton."”
The Poetical Works of Alfred Tennyson by Alfred Tennyson: “from Randolph Ash's will: "my Poems of Keats, and Poetical Works of Lord Tennyson to go to Miss Eliza Daunton."”
Mr. Sludge, "The Medium" by Robert Browning: “long passage quoted and attributed: "—Robert Browning from 'Mr Sludge, "the Medium"'"”
Undine by Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué: “the difference between the tales of the Brothers Grimm and La Motte Fouqué's Undine.”
Faith by George Herbert: “"I know true Faith when I meet it—as George Herbert... But in his poem 'Faith' he does speak—of the Grave—and beyond," followed by quoted lines of the real poem.”
Mélusine maternelle et défricheuse by Jacques Le Goff: “There's a very good piece by Jacques Le Goff on 'Melusine Défricheuse'... according to the new historians she's a kind of earth spirit.”
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage by Byron: “His grandfather recited poetry on firelight evenings: Marmion, Childe Harold, Ragnarök.”
Sick Love by Robert Graves: “quoted and named in dialogue: "'Walk between dark and dark—a shining space / With the grave's narrowness, though not its peace.' ... 'It's Robert Graves.'"”
She Tells Her Love While Half Asleep by Robert Graves: “she had sat up naked... and recited Robert Graves: 'She tells her love while half asleep, In the dark hours, With half-words whispered low.'”
Death Be Not Proud by John Donne: “Ash on his deathbed "had become obsessed by the poems of John Donne, had recited them to the ceiling"; footnoted as Donne, "Death Be Not Proud," Divine Poems.”
Totem and Taboo by Sigmund Freud: “I think often of what Freud said about the relations of our primitive forebears to the dead... 'The fact that demons are always regarded as the spirits of those who have died recently.'”
Love's Alchemy by John Donne: “Mummy Possest is of course a quotation from John Donne, 'Love's Alchemy.' 'Hope not for minde in women; at their best/Sweetnesse and wit, they are but Mummy, Possest.'”
On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin: “The Origin of Species was published in 1859. Ash’s friend Michelet, the great historian, had at this time taken to nature study”