A. S. Byatt - Novels, Short Stories & Essays (17 books)

A. S. BYATT (b. 1936) is an English novelist, poet, critic and Booker Prize winner. In 2008, The Times newspaper named her on its list of the 50 greatest British writers since 1945.

The story of a young girl growing up in the shadow of a dominant father, Byatt's first novel, THE SHADOW OF THE SUN, was published in 1964. Her novel THE GAME (1967) charts the dynamics between two sisters, and the family theme is continued in her quartet THE VIRGIN IN THE GARDEN (1978), STILL LIFE (1985), BABEL TOWER (1996), and A WHISTLING WOMAN (2002). Describing mid-20th-century Britain, the books follow the life of Frederica Potter, a young female intellectual studying at Cambridge at a time when women were heavily outnumbered by men at that university, and then tracing her journey as a divorcée with a young son making a new life in London. Both BABEL TOWER and A WHISTLING WOMAN touch on the utopian and revolutionary dreams of the 1960s. Byatt describes herself as "a naturally pessimistic animal": "I don't believe that human beings are basically good, so I think all utopian movements are doomed to fail, but I am interested in them."

POSSESSION (1990) parallels the emerging relationship of two contemporary academics with the past of two (fictional) nineteenth-century poets whom they are researching. It won the Man Booker Prize in 1990 and was made into a film in 2002. Byatt's novel ANGELS & INSECTS also became a successful film, nominated for an Academy Award (1995). THE CHILDREN'S BOOK (2009) was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize.

Her short story collections include SUGAR & OTHER STORIES (1987); THE DJINN IN THE NIGHTINGALE'S EYE (1994), a collection of fairy tales; ELEMENTALS (1998); and LITTLE BLACK BOOK OF STORIES (2003). THE MATISSE STORIES (1993) features three pieces, each describing a painting by Henri Matisse, each the tale of an initially smaller crisis that shows the long-present unravelling in the protagonists' lives.

Rounding out this torrent are two volumes of essays and literary criticism: PASSIONS OF THE MIND (1991) and ON HISTORIES AND STORIES (2000).


The following books are in ePUB format unless otherwise indicated:

* ANGELS AND INSECTS: Two Novellas (Vintage, 1994)

* BABEL TOWER (Vintage, 1997)

* THE BIOGRAPHER'S TALE (Knopf, 2001)

* THE CHILDREN'S BOOK (Knopf, 2009)

* THE DJINN IN THE NIGHTINGALE'S EYE: Five Fairy Stories (Vintage, 1995)

* ELEMENTALS: Stories of Fire and Ice (Vintage, 2000)

* THE GAME (Vintage, 1992)

* LITTLE BLACK BOOK OF STORIES (Vintage, 2005)

* THE MATISSE STORIES (Vintage, 1996)

* ON HISTORIES AND STORIES: Selected Essays (Harvard UP, 2000) -- PDF

* PASSIONS OF THE MIND: Selected Writings (Turtle Bay, 1992) -- PDF

* POSSESSION: A Romance (Vintage, 1991) -- ePUB + PDF

* RAGNAROK: The End of the Gods (Canongate, 2011)

* THE SHADOW OF THE SUN (Harcourt, 1991). With a new Introduction by the author -- PDF

* SUGAR & OTHER STORIES (Vintage, 1992)

* THE VIRGIN IN THE GARDEN (Vintage, 1992)

* A WHISTLING WOMAN (Vintage, 2004)