Kathleen Coyne Kelly has written the first full-length study of Byatt's oeuvre. Kelly shows how the early novels, along with Byatt's better-known recent work, illustrate the degree to which Byatt is at home with both the conventions of realism and the challenges of postmodernism. In all of her fiction, Byatt combines a passion for intellectual analysis with rich plotting and vivid characterization; increasingly, she is being recognized as one of the great British novelists of the late twentieth century.

. Throughout her novels and short stories, Byatt weaves a complex and erudite web of literary allusion and philosophical reflection. Kelly's study helps to make Byatt's work more accessible to students; at the same time, Kelly is able to engage the more sophisticated reader. A.S. Byatt is an elegant and informative introduction to an outstanding contemporary British author.