A. S. Byatt was the author of numerous novels, including The Children’s Book, The Biographer’s Tale, and Possession, which was awarded the Booker Prize. She also wrote two novellas, published together as Angels & Insects, five collections of short stories, and several works of nonfiction. A distinguished critic and author, and the recipient of the 2016 Erasmus Prize for her “inspiring contribution to ‘life writing,’” she died in 2023.
Readers of Byatt's Still Life ( LJ 11/15/85) and, to a lesser extent, Possession ( LJ 11/1/90) will find this collection of her criticism true to her quality and themes. The essays range from describing the influences on her own work to analysis of her favorite Victorians, Robert Browning and George Eliot, and such modernist writers as Ford Madox Ford, William Golding, and Iris Murdoch. Some female writers (Willa Cather, Elizabeth Bowen, and Toni Morrison, among others) are treated, as are the relationship of the real and the symbolic, as revealed by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Charles Rycroft, and Vincent Van Gogh. Byatt's interest in the influence of religion on writing shines through. The writing is brilliant, requiring a substantial awareness of English literature and command of the language. For academic and large public libraries. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 10/15/91.-- Ann Irvine, Montgomery Cty. P.L., Md.
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