One of James's best-known and most acclaimed longer tales. English original edition- An unnamed American editor rents a room in Venice in the home of Juliana Bordereau, the elderly mistress of Jeffrey Aspern, a deceased Romantic poet, in order to procure from her the poet's papers. Bordereau, a stingy, domineering woman, lives with her timid middle-aged niece, Tina. The manipulative editor, obsessed with possessing the Aspern papers, exhibits progressively unscrupulous behaviour, such as assuming an alias, making false romantic overtures to Tina, and attempting burglary. The Aspern Papers demonstrates James's ability to generate suspense while never neglecting the development of his characters. Henry James (1843-1916) was an American novelist and, as a naturalized English citizen from 1915, a great figure in the transatlantic culture. His fundamental theme was the innocence and exuberance of the New World in clash with the corruption and wisdom of the Old, as illustrated in such works as Daisy Miller (1879), The Portrait of a Lady (1881), The Bostonians (1886), and The Ambassadors (1903).