Possession Audiobook By A. S. Byatt cover art

Possession

Preview
LIMITED TIME OFFER

3 months free
Try for $0.00
Offer ends July 31, 2025 at 11:59PM PT.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 3 months. Cancel anytime.

Possession

By: A. S. Byatt
Narrated by: Virginia Leishman
Try for $0.00

$0.00/mo. after 3 months. Offer ends July 31, 2025 at 11:59PM PT. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $36.89

Buy for $36.89

Confirm purchase
Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use, License, and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.
Cancel

About this listen

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.

©1990 A.S. Byatt (P)1999 Recorded Books
Fiction Genre Fiction Gothic Horror Literary Fiction Metaphysical & Visionary Scary England Romance Heartfelt

Featured Article: 65+ Quotes About Love from Much-Loved Authors


While saying "I love you" speaks volumes, there are times when you yearn to express your feelings for a loved one—whether a cherished friend, serious crush, or your soul mate—in a way that's more creative, more eloquent, more memorable...in a word: quotable. For those times, there's no better source to turn to than great authors. We've collected some of most tender, most romantic, and most passionate quotes from the world's most-loved authors.

Interwoven Storylines • Beautiful Prose • Masterful Reading • Likable Characters • Compelling Mystery • Poetic Language
Highly rated for:
All stars
Most relevant  
I love this story. But there are horrible skips in the audio. See the reading of Swammerdam in part 12. Someone should be listening to these titles and making sure they surivived digitization particularly if you're ripping them from CDs. Sheesh.

Digitization errors! Please do some QA in your files.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

I love this book -- read it when it first came out and then again for a book club. Several years have passed. One of the things I love about Audible is finding a fondly remembered book, then discovering a whole new experience in the hearing of it! Possession is very well narrated here, and I just had a wonderful wallow in the joys of this book's language! The plot combines poetry, historical and contemporary romance, and a literary mystery. Possession is not for everyone, but, if you have the occasional poetic and romantic inclination, make the investment.

Rediscovering a Favorite

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

Any additional comments?

This book has a style and characters that are not that exciting to me, but would probably be to someone else. The characters like libraries and manuscripts and probably (it's been a while since I read it),a spot of hot tea to really make the world right. It was all very into the joys and nail-biting of academia, if that's what you like, with an extra teaspoon of fuss-budget. The characters seem a little geriatric for as young as they're supposed to be. Some books of this genre really work for me (give me Jane Austen and yes, some Earl Grey),and I wish this could have been one. (The Historian by E. Kostova was good, too).

style is heavy-handed

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

Leisham does a masterful job of reading - sensitive, passionate, respectful. A beautiful love story wrapped in mystery.

Beautiful

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

I've loved Possession for a long time but hearing it made everything in it much more tangible and personal. It's incredibly well done ,

enjoyed it more hearing it

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

Would you try another book from A.S. Byatt and/or Virginia Leisham?

yes

What do you think the narrator could have done better?

There are two big mistakes in this reading. There is NOTHING in the background of the character of Mortimer Cropper that suggests he should have a southern accent. He's an academic from New Mexico who happens to be rich. He's not a plantation owner or even a wealthy businessman from the south. Having a grandparent from Mississippi would not account for the southern drawl he's been given either. It's very, very annoying to listen to him whenever his character shows up.

Also as a literary person he would know that Swedenborg is not pronounced

Any additional comments?

Except for the two things I've mentioned I thought the narration was excellent. There was sufficient change in the voices to distinguish the different characters and the acting was very good. I would be happy to listen to another audio book by that reader.

Narrator mistakes

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

This is a mesmerizing novel, beautifully written and beautifully narrated. The story just won't let you go - you have to know what happened to these characters - both the ones in the past and ones living in the present day. I'm sorry this novel is over.

Beautifully written.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

I did not imagine that this premise could result in a story with an engaging and uncommon romance, characters that would engender pathos and suspense-filled scenarios! This was my first Byatt read, and I was absolutely floored by the range

From skeptic to smitten

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

When holding the book in my hands, I found the long sections of history and myth woven into poetry interesting in what they revealed about the characters and the author. Strangely, many of these same sections became tedious when translated to the oral format. Perhaps I had jumped ahead or not paid full attention when reading? But when listening there is no effective way of moving the story forward without possibly missing the plot narrative. "Get on with it already!" I cried several times. A warning, the theoretical polemics of post-modern "social scientists" may seem impenetrable to those not embroiled in the verbiage of modern academia; those involved in these fields may see themselves parodied with ironic accuracy. It is words and, as stated by the author, "lists of words that arranged themselves into poems" that form the beauty of this book that ultimately leaves the romantic in tears.

audible poetry

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

brilliant story, beautiful prose and then there is the poetry, to say nothing of the dog.

not to be missed

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

See more reviews