> Skip to content
  • Published: 27 August 2014
  • ISBN: 9780141389790
  • Imprint: Penguin Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 384
  • RRP: $32.99

The Aspern Papers and Other Tales



A wonderful new collection of Henry James's short stories about the relationship between art and life, edited by 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 Aspern Papers', a critic is determined to get his hands on a great poet's papers hidden in a faded Venetian house - not matter 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' both explore the tension between artistic and commercial success. These fables of the creative life reveal James at his ironic, provocative best.

  • Published: 27 August 2014
  • ISBN: 9780141389790
  • Imprint: Penguin Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 384
  • RRP: $32.99

Other books in the series

Maldoror and Poems
On Sparta
Love
Annals
Military Dispatches

About the author

Henry James

Henry James was born on 15th April 1843 in Washington Place, New York to a wealthy and intellectual family and as a youth travelled between Europe and America and studied with tutors in Geneva, London, Paris, Bologna and Bonn. He briefly and unsuccessfully studied law at Harvard but decided he preferred reading and writing fiction to studying law. His first novel, Watch and Ward, was published in 1871 after first appearing serially in Atlantic Monthly. After a brief period in Paris, James moved first to London and then later to Rye in Sussex. He became a British citizen in 1915 to declare his loyalty to his adopted country as well as to protest against America's refusal to enter the war on behalf of Britain. Henry James was a prolific writer and critic and from around 1875 until his death he maintained a strenuous schedule of publications in a variety of genres: novels, short story collections, literary criticism, travel writing, biography and autobiography. He died in 1916.

Also by Henry James

See all