The Aspern Papers

First published in 1888, this novella sends an unnamed American editor to Venice to obtain letters of the dead Romantic poet Jeffrey Aspern. He lodges in the decaying palazzo of Aspern's aged former lover, Juliana Bordereau, and her lonely niece Miss Tina, pretending to want only a garden. Juliana guards the papers; the narrator courts the niece as a means of access. The contest is over memory, privacy, and what a literary estate is worth. The book is a psychological tale of literary theft, not a biography of any real poet and not a guide to Venice.

Quarter bound in dark green cloth, pale green-brown paper boards patterned green and red. Pale green-brown endleaves. Transparent plastic dust-jacket, no slipcase.