Title: The Aspen Papers

Author: Henry James

Date of First Publication: March-May, 1888

Publisher: The Atlantic Monthly, vol. 61, no. 365 (Boston, MA), pp. 296-315.

Bibliographic Reference: isfdb

Type: Short story

Character: Percy Shelley (Jeffrey Aspern), Claire Clairmont (Juliana Bordereau)

Keywords: BYRONIC HERO; WOMEN WRITING MONSTERS

Critical Summary: Originally published in The Atlantic Monthly in three installments in 1888, Henry James’s short story—like his later story “The Figure in the Carpet” (1896)—is about one man’s obsession with the work of an author.

The author central to the story is the late great poet Jeffrey Aspern. The anonymous narrator and his colleague, John Cumnor, have made a lifework out of collecting, editing, and writing criticism on all of Aspern’s writings. When they learn that one of Aspern’s lovers, Juliana Bordereau, is still alive, quietly whiling away the last days of her long life in a mansion in Venice, the two self-styled “priests” of the temple of Aspern wonder if Miss Bordereau has kept love letters from him. The narrator travels to Venice and, under a pseudonym, rents rooms in the Bordereau mansion. He goes to increasing lengths to gain access to papers which may not even exist, or may already be destroyed: paying exorbitant rent, cultivating the Bordereau’s garden, pretending to have a romantic interest in Juliana’s niece, Miss Tita, and finally breaking into the Bordereau’s private rooms to steal the letters. The suspense builds as the narrator and Juliana mask their intentions and engage in a duel of wits, with Miss Tita caught in the crossfire, culminating in a devastating crisis of conscience.

The most direct line of connection between “The Aspern Papers” and Frankenstein is that the idea of Aspern’s letters to Juliana was inspired by Percy Bysshe Shelley’s letters to Mary’s stepsister, Claire Clairmont. However, there are some thematic connections as well. Jeffrey Aspern could be a type for not only Percy Shelley but Lord Byron, and the narrator could also be considered a Byronic figure. Like Dr. Frankenstein, the narrator is a Byronic hero in pursuit of forbidden knowledge. Like Frankenstein, the narrator does not pause to consider the moral implications and possible consequences of his quest.

A shared theme between Frankenstein and “The Aspern Papers” is the relationship of a creator to his creation—particularly, the relationship of a writer to his literary creation. The narrator acts as if Aspern still lives through his surviving papers; for him to find to papers is to obtain a deeper knowledge of, and a closer connection to, the man himself. Aspern has lost control of his creations. His letters are now in the hands of Juliana, and the rest of his works are in the hands of the two editors, and they three control the future of his reputation and literary legacy.

Just as Mary Shelley describes her novel as her own Frankenstein monster in her preface, in “The Aspern Papers” there is something monstrous about the process of creating literature and unleashing it into the world, only for it to be fought over by others. The narrator, too, is an author, as well as a schemer. The story suggests his literary pursuits are not entirely honorable, being so parasitically dependent upon the accomplishments of another writer. Moreover, his elaborate scheme to capture the Aspern Papers, so meticulously controlled at first, results in circumstances entirely out of his control.

Finally, though there are no women writers in the story—with the exception of Miss Tita when she writes Cumnor a letter to deter him from his search—the theme of women and writing is present and problematic. The narrator expresses his paranoia that Juliana will make an authorial decision on Aspern’s behalf to destroy his letters. The implication is that women are a threat to the survival of men’s writing.

Administrative Notes: Robert Brown, CSUF. Edited by Molly Robertson.