The Aspern Papers and Other Tales

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An impressive new selection of Henry James’s short stories, edited by Pulitzer Prize–nominated James biographer Michael Gorra

This volume gathers seven of the very best of Henry James’s short stories, all exploring the relationship between art and life. In the title story, “The Aspern Papers,” a critic is determined to get his hands on a great poet’s papers hidden in a faded Venetian house—no mater what the human cost. “The Author of Beltraffio,” “The Lesson of the Master,” and “The Figure in the Carpet” all focus on naive young men’s unsettling encounters with their literary heroes. In “The Middle Years,” a dying novelist begins to glimpse his own potential, while “The Real Thing” and “Greville Fane” explore the tension between artistic and commercial success. These fables of the creative life reveal James at his ironic, provocative best.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.HENRY JAMES (1843–1916) wrote some twenty novels, including Washington Square, The Portrait of a Lady, and The Ambassadors, in addition to many short stories, plays, and books of criticism, autobiography, and travel.

MICHAEL GORRA is a professor of English at Smith College and the author of Portrait of a Novel: Henry James and the Making of an American Masterpiece.

PHILIP HORNE is a professor of English at University College London. He is an authority on nineteenth-century literature, specifically the works of Charles Dickens and Henry James.GB

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