Possession

Roland Michell, a struggling academic, discovers two draft letters tucked inside a book belonging to the Victorian poet Randolph Henry Ash. This discovery links Ash to Christabel LaMotte, a lesser-known poet, suggesting a secret affair that contradicts established literary history. Roland teams up with Maud Bailey, a LaMotte scholar, to track their ancestors' movements through journals, poems, and correspondence. As the modern researchers piece together the illicit romance across England and Brittany, they find their own professional and romantic lives mirroring the obsession of their subjects.

Readers who enjoy literary puzzles and the intricacies of archival research will appreciate the inclusion of full-length Victorian-style poems, fairy tales, and letters. It is written for those who value precise historical pastiche and the detective work involved in literary biography. The reader walks away with a detailed understanding of how modern academics project their own desires onto historical figures and the ways in which the act of scholarship can become a form of possession.