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The Aspern Papers

Henry James

The Aspern Papers

Henry James

5 chapters · ~38,960 words · Moderate · Downloaded 1,104 times on Gutenberg in the last 30 days · Source

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"The Aspern Papers" by Henry James is a novella published in 1888. A nameless narrator travels to Venice with a singular obsession: to obtain the private letters of Jeffrey Aspern, a deceased American poet. His target is Juliana Bordereau, the poet's aged former lover, who guards these precious documents. To gain access, the narrator poses as a lodger and considers courting Juliana's plain niece, Miss Tita. James crafts a suspenseful tale about the ethical boundaries of biographical pursuit, where desire for literary treasure collides with human dignity and privacy. (This is an automatically generated summary.)

Summary from Project Gutenberg's catalogue data.

  1. 1THE ASPERN PAPERS(1)59,887 chars
  2. 2THE ASPERN PAPERS(2)58,907 chars
  3. 3THE ASPERN PAPERS(3)15,916 chars
  4. 4VII(1)58,557 chars
  5. 5VII(2)33,347 chars