This selection of essays reflects the varied enthusiasms of A.S. Byatt. It sweeps from great Romanticism and Victorians to modern writers, from the art of Van Gogh to the value of myth. Two major sections trace Byatt's fascination with the complex links between the symbolic and the real, and her changing views on her own craft of writing. A.S. Byatt's novels include "Shadow of the Sun", "The Game", "The Virgin in the Garden", "Still Life", "Sugar and other Stories" and "Possession: a Romance".