- Paperback: 256 pages
- Publisher: Oxford Paperbacks; New edition edition (25 May 2000)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0192836161
- ISBN-13: 978-0192836168
- Product Dimensions: 19.3 x 12.7 x 1.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,096,976 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
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Product Description
Product Description
An unscrupulous critic, determined to get his hands on the private papers of a great poet, finds himself duelling with the grim old lady who was once the poet's mistress and muse. Aspern's lost world of beauty and romance still seems to hand in the glamorous air of Venice, but the price of admission turns out to involve another party, the old woman's unmagical niece. What exactly is Aspern's admirer prepared to pay? In the other stories collected here - 'The Private Life', 'The Middle Years', and 'The Death of the Lion' - the elusive figure of the writer again arouses passions of pursuit and dispute among rival admirers and patrons. James never wrote more pointedly about the pleasures and pains of the writer, or more wittily about the public that seeks to profit from him.
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First Sentence
I HAD taken Mrs Prest into my confidence; without her in truth I should have made but little advance, for the fruitful idea in the whole business dropped from her friendly lips. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
I HAD taken Mrs Prest into my confidence; without her in truth I should have made but little advance, for the fruitful idea in the whole business dropped from her friendly lips. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
Format:Paperback
The protagonist in this classic will do anything to get his hands on the private letters of his literary hero (Jeffery Aspern), even wooing the charge of Aspern's now elderly former muse. This story gives an insight into our modern celebrity obsessed culture.
Other stories in this volume The private life, the middle years and the death of the lion.
Other stories in this volume The private life, the middle years and the death of the lion.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
7 reviews
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Brilliant and also heartbreaking
11 Feb 2000
Format:Hardcover
The title novella here is one of the finest examples of the entire genre. The questions underlying the narrator's intended crime (such as the problems of literary propriety, the "hauntedness" scholars feel from their literary subjects) are exquisitely handled... yet even so this story wouldn't be nearly so memorable if its expert treatment of Miss Tina's anguish weren't rendered so vividly. Her confession scene ("I can't go on... I'm too ashamed!") is one of the most moving things James ever wrote, equalled only by her strange surmounting of that anguish later in the book and by the narrator's rueful closing words.
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Civilization and Its Discontents
17 Dec 2005
Format:Paperback
The Aspern Papers is a brilliant story that concentrates everything great about Henry James in one brisk addictive read. James had such a deep feeling for the ornate social niceties of his day that he was able to poke fun of them while still respecting their essential decency--he seemed to understand the greed and brutality they kept in check. Our unnamed narrator's quest to outfox a great poet's elderly mistress and lay ahold of her onetime lover's papers unfolds in a languid world of gondolas, decaying Venetian palazzos, hot evenings in overgrown gardens, and above all a comfortable leisure that allows the smallest social gestures to take on earth-shaking significance.
James had an uncanny ability to make that world come alive, bringing you into its subtleties and rites, while at the same time taking you behind the elegant façade to expose the aggression, cupidity, and naked power politics that lurk just beneath the impeccable manners. Our narrator wants the papers; the mistress wants money for her niece, and the niece ... well, order this book and read on to find out. You won't be disappointed--it's one of James's best.
James had an uncanny ability to make that world come alive, bringing you into its subtleties and rites, while at the same time taking you behind the elegant façade to expose the aggression, cupidity, and naked power politics that lurk just beneath the impeccable manners. Our narrator wants the papers; the mistress wants money for her niece, and the niece ... well, order this book and read on to find out. You won't be disappointed--it's one of James's best.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
James at His Most Modern
29 July 1999
Format:Paperback
"The Aspern Papers" asks the question: to what extent should private information be made public and for what reason? James' book concerns the triple manipulations of people who have or want access to the private love letters written by a famous 19th century poet, Jeffrey Aspern. The sperned lover, an antique American named Juliana, has her reasons for keeping and for selling the letters (if they exist at all). A greedy and unnamed young journalist wishes to build his career on the exposure of Juliana's love affair to the Jeffrey Aspern. A spinster, Juliana's niece who shares Juliana's villa in Venice, is the "price" for the sale of the letters. Add to this the "ghost" of Jeffrey Aspern, who seems to be present around every corner, and what James has produced is a suspenseful tale of warped values, shady dealings, and the corruption of "the innocents". James' language and style may at first be daunting, but "The Aspern Papers" is a wonderful introduction to a great American writer who knew first-hand the power of psychology.
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