The Aspern Papers [Paperback]

Henry James (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 21, 2001

This is a title in an inexpensive range of classics in the "Penguin Popular Classics" series.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Based on a true incident involving the mistress of Lord Byron, James's 1888 novella portrays the narrator's obsession with acquiring the private papers of a dead poet from the man's lover. This latest addition to Dover's wonderful "Thrift" line is currently the most affordable edition available.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Review

Novelette by Henry James, published in 1888, first in The Atlantic Monthly (March-May) and then in the collection The Aspern Papers, Louisa Pallant, The Modern Warning. In "The Aspern Papers," an unnamed American editor rents a room in Venice in the home of Juliana Bordereau, the elderly mistress of Jeffrey Aspern, a deceased Romantic poet, in order to procure from her the poet's papers. Bordereau, a stingy, domineering woman, lives with her timid, middle-aged niece, Tina. (The niece was named Tita until James revised the text in 1908.) The manipulative editor, obsessed with possessing the Aspern papers, exhibits progressively unscrupulous behavior, such as assuming an alias, making false romantic overtures to Tina, and attempting burglary. When Bordereau dies, Tina offers the editor the coveted documents on the condition that he marry her. He initially refuses but returns to negotiate, only to find that Tina, in a display of newfound dignity, has burned the papers. The novelette was inspired by an actual incident involving Claire Clairmont, once the mistress of Lord Byron. -- The Merriam-Webster Encyclopedia of Literature --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 120 pages
• Publisher: IndyPublish (December 21, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 158827635X
• ISBN-13: 978-1588276353
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 6.5 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,701,841 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Henry James (1843-1916), the son of the religious philosopher Henry James Sr. and brother of the psychologist and philosopher William James, published many important novels including Daisy Miller, The Wings of the Dove, The Golden Bowl, and The Ambassadors.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Short sharp Henry James shocker., June 20, 2001

By 

darragh o'donoghue - See all my reviews

This review is from: Aspern Papers (Everyman's Library) (Paperback)

Such is his facility with the essentials of theatre - concentrated narrative action; lengthy, dramatic scenes of dialogue; vivid characterisation; pointed use of interior space, exits and entrances, and the revealing image - you wonder why James failed as a playwright.

Of course, there is a defining element of James' art that is impossible in the theatre - narration. The nameless narrator of 'The Aspern Papers' is one of the greatest monsters in James' teeming gallery of inglorious masculinity - the editor of a revered American literary poet, who tries to wheedle important documents from a celebrated lover, the now-decrepit Juliana, by installing himself as a lodger, and flattering her aging spinster niece. Like most James heroes, who treat life like a selfish game, he has no idea what emotional havoc he is wreaking on the woman.

The tale has all the drive and tantalising delay of a crime story - the hero is both detective and criminal, and the suspenseful climax suggests what a great genre writer James could have been. As with Stendhal, just as exciting are the intricate, agonising dialogues between the narrator and the niece, each wildly misunderstanding the other.

But if 'Aspern' is a crime story, than the the criminal is of the order of Freddie Montgomery in Banville's 'The Book of Evidence', a brilliant, charming, frighteningly amoral man, whose check of social scruples is dicarded with shocking ease. His seemingly over-detailed account is full of gaps, self-defence, self-pity, evasion, vagueness, misremembering, disarming honesty and wild misinterpreations of others' characters and motives. He is a man who can't see beyond his own narrow goal, behind whom we always sense an unseen, all-seeing eye.

He is the forerunner to a second modern anti-hero, 'Pale Fire''s Charles Kinbote, another literary editor whose devotion to his subject has become mad and murderous. In a Victorian age full of cant about the ennobling power of art, James asserts, disturbingly, the opposite - repeated exposure to sublime poetry (and the book is full of ironic references to religion and glorious war) has only made the narrator emotinally dead, unable to respond to the humanity of others. This 'portrait' of an aging muse, malevolent and concupiscent is a stark warning to literary idealisers, and a sad study of human decline, but should also be seen as a reflection of the narrator's own desires.

'Aspern' is incidentally THE great Venice story, its watery decay somehow seeping through the narrator's blind egotism.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Nice intro to James' style, March 28, 2001

By 

Robert P. Beveridge "xterminal" (Lakewood, OH) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Aspern Papers (Everyman's Library) (Paperback)

Henry James, The Aspern Papers (Laurel, 1888)

One of James' shortest novels, and one of his least-known, The Aspern Papers is a (supposedly based on a true) story about a young biographer of famed poet Jeffrey Aspern (based, depending on to whom you talk, on either Browning or Keats) who contrives to get his hands on the love letters Aspern wrote to a mistress by presenting himself at the now-ancient mistress' Italian villa and passing himself off as a wealthy traveller and author looking for lodging. The mistress lives with her spinster niece, whose age is never given (one assumes mid-forties, a few years older than the narrator), and the two are impoverished. Things go as planned until the narrator finds himself starting to like the niece a bit more than he bargained for.

The novel runs a bit over a hundred pages, which makes it an excellent introduction to James' extremely dry wit; it's much lighter-weight than the ponderous tomes he's known for. The prose here has an agility which is absent from works such as The Bostonians or The Wings of the Dove, but still manages to convey emotion quite well with only a few words and a gesture. The novel's last pages are a triumph of minimal writing, and probably deserve closer scrutiny than the works of James' that are normally assinged in English classes around the globe.

Oddly, the one major failing of this novel is that James abandons the minimalism every once in a while, and his characters go overboard with hysterical crying and the like so common to Victorian literature. In a book that's otherwise so controlled, these episodes-- never longer than a few sentences-- seem absurd more than anything; perfectly composed people suddenly collapse into tears as if shot with pepper spray, and then within the space of a paragraph are back to their cool, collected selves once again. These intrusions are minimal, and while they detract from the scenes in which they're placed, the novel overall is still a worthy one. If you've been turned off by James through exposure to one of those million-page drawing room comedies, you may want to give him another try with this. *** 1/2

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Superbly Written and Psychologically Astute, October 8, 2005

By 

L. Young "palmtree2000" (West Orange, NJ USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Aspern Papers (Dover Thrift Editions) (Paperback)

This story of an unnamed narrator ingratiating himself into the household of a elderly lady, once the mistress of a famous poet with whom the narrator is obsessed, and her middle-aged niece, in order to obtain papers written by the poet is superbly written and psychologically astute. As often is the case with the works of Henry James it is an exegesis on how people use other people. Often times it isn't exactly clear who is using whom more. The Aspern Papers is an excellent introduction to Henry James for those first approaching The Master's work. It is a novella, approximately 100 pages in length. The writing style is elegant and clear, unlike his style in later works like "The Wings of the Dove" and "The Golden Bowl" which tend to be convoluted and vague.