A.S. Byatt entitled her book “Possession: a Romance” because it refers to three main contents: A. Ownership and independence between lovers: the book tells the story of 2 couplrs of lovers. The first one is that made up by Ash and Lamotte, in which are inserted Ellen (Ash’s wife) and Blanche (Lamotte’s lover).

This strange situation emphazises the desires that each lover has towards his own beloved: Ash and Christabel want to possess each other but at the same time there’s a situation of indipendence between them due to the relationship they respectively have with Ellen and Blanche, which at the same time need a sort of ownership towards their beloved. The second one is that consisted of Roland and Maud, that have relative problems with other respective lovers too (Val and Fergus). B. The practice of collecting historically significant cultural artifacts: this is the case of Mortimer Cropper, an Ash’s American biographer. This character pays big money for Ash’s memorabilia. This seems an ossession, not a possession. C. The possession that a biographer feels for their subject: when Roland finds out Ash’s letters in Vico’s book at the London Library, he stoles them cause he wants to possess some real property of the intellectual he was analyzing. The same happens to Cropper when Maud and Roland find out all Ash’s and Christabel’s original letters: he wants to buy them.