World Literature, Fiction Subjects

The Aspern papers

Name: The Aspern papers
Author: Henry James
ISBN: 9780678028124

by James, Henry

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Overview

THE ASPERN PAPERS posits a love affair between Jeffrey Aspern, a romantic poet of the early 19th century, deceased at the time of the story, and a beautiful young woman whom he called Julianna. In reality, Julianna has become an aged and reclusive spinster, Miss Bordereaux, who lives in seclusion in a barricaded villa in Venice with her niece, Miss Tina. An American editor, the principal character in this story, who is a leading scholar of Jeffrey Aspern, tracks Miss Bordereaux to her Venice redoubt, where he believes she has secreted valuable papers left to her by Jeffrey Aspern. The confrontation between the old world and the new, between European culture and American, Miss Bordereaux and her niece, serve to illustrate James' theme that culture can be neither acquired nor transplanted, but must be grown, one leaf and one branch at a time, in home soil.

Includes The Aspern Papers, The Turn of the Screw, The Liar, and The Two Faces.

About the Author, Henry James

Henry James

Henry James was a master at tracing the social boundaries of the Gilded Age -- between Old and New World, Europe and America, desire and convention, men and women. He brought an invaluably clear-eyed, and critical, sensibility to America's evolving cultural mores.

Biography

Henry James (1843-1916), born in New York City, was the son of noted religious philosopher Henry James, Sr., and brother of eminent psychologist and philosopher William James. He spent his early life in America and studied in Geneva, London and Paris during his adolescence to gain the worldly experience so prized by his father. He lived in Newport, went briefly to Harvard Law School, and in 1864 began to contribute both criticism and tales to magazines. In 1869, and then in 1872-74, he paid visits to Europe and began his first novel, Roderick Hudson. Late in 1875 he settled in Paris, where he met Turgenev, Flaubert, and Zola, and wrote The American (1877). In December 1876 he moved to London, where two years later he achieved international fame with Daisy Miller. Other famous works include Washington Square (1880), The Portrait of a Lady (1881), The Princess Casamassima (1886), The Aspern Papers (1888), The Turn of the Screw (1898), and three large novels of the new century, The Wings of the Dove (1902), The Ambassadors (1903) and The Golden Bowl (1904). In 1905 he revisited the United States and wrote The American Scene (1907). During his career, he also wrote many works of criticism and travel. Although old and ailing, he threw himself into war work in 1914, and in 1915, a few months before his death, he became a British subject. In 1916 King George V conferred the Order of Merit on him. He died in London in February 1916.

Author biography courtesy of Penguin Group (USA).