In this stunning literary mystery, two scholars uncover a hidden love affair that refuses to stay buried.
Roland Michell is a young academic drifting through obscurity when he discovers a letter in the archive of the Victorian poet Randolph Henry Ash. The letter hints at a secret relationship with another poet, Christabel LaMotte. What begins as literary curiosity becomes a covert investigation into a concealed history.
Joined by Maud Bailey, a specialist in LaMotte's work, Roland traces a correspondence that has remained hidden for over a century. As their research leads them through libraries, country houses and private collections, scholarship gives way to rivalry, secrecy and the thrill of discovery.
This is a literary mystery that brings...
A.S. Byatt (1936-2023) was a novelist, short-story writer and critic of international renown. Her novels include Possession (winner of the Booker Prize 1990), the Frederica Quartet and The Children’s Book, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction. She was appointed CBE in 1990 and DBE in 1999, and was awarded the Erasmus Prize 2016 for her ‘inspiring contribution to life writing’ and the Pak Kyongni Prize 2017. In 2018 she received the Hans Christian Andersen Literature Award.
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