The Aspern Papers and Other Stories

"There's no baseness I wouldn't commit for Jeffrey Aspern's sake."

The Aspern Papers is one of James's best-known and most accomplished novellas, whose plot foreshadows the modern cult of the writer as celebrity, and the hunger to uncover previously unseen writings. Indeed, in all four stories collected here—including "The Death of the Lion," "The Figure in the Carpet" and "The Birthplace"—the figure of the artist is central. Extraordinarily prophetic, James explores the emergent new cult of...