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PLOT SUMMARY A nameless narrator goes to Venice in order to locate Juliana Bordereau, an old lover of Jeffrey Aspern, a famous and now dead American Poet . The narrator insinuates himself into the old woman's house as a lodger and flatters Miss Tita, her niece, a plain, somewhat naive spinster, in hopes of getting a look at some of Aspern's letters. (In the ''New York Edition'' ( 1909 ) revision of the story, James changed the niece's name to Tina.) When the old woman falls ill, the narrator sneaks into her room and gets caught by Juliana as he is about to rifle her desk for the letters. Juliana calls the narrator a " Publishing scoundrel" and collapses. The narrator flees, and when he returns some days later, he finds that Juliana has died. Miss Tita hints that he can have the Aspern letters if he marries her. Again, the narrator flees. For a time he considers Miss Tita's proposal, but when he returns, he finds that she has burned all the letters, one by one. The narrator never sees the precious papers, but he does send Miss Tita some money for a miniature portrait of Aspern that she gave him. MAJOR THEMES In this tightly constructed work, James examines the conflicts involved when a Biographer seeks to pry into the intimate life of his subject. James loathed Publicity and zealously guarded his own Privacy . A few years before his death he burned masses of old letters that he had received, and he often begged his correspondents not to publicize - or better yet, to destroy - the letters he sent to them. So it's not surprising that James paints the nameless narrator of ''The Aspern Papers'' as, in Juliana's words, a "publishing scoundrel." And yet he also generates sneaking sympathy for the narrator as he tries to work the papers loose from Juliana, who is presented as greedy, domineering and unappealing. The story unwinds into the brilliant double climax of Juliana's discovery of the narrator about to break into her desk, and then Miss Tita's revelation that she has destroyed the papers. Miss Tita is ashamed of her marriage proposal to the narrator, but James implies that she does exactly the right thing by depriving him of the papers. In a way, she develops into the true Heroine of the story. CRITICAL EVALUATION James thought so highly of this story that he put it first in volume 12 of The ''New York Edition'', ahead of even '' The Turn Of The Screw ''. Critics have almost unanimously agreed with him about the tale's superb quality. James builds suspense in a way that any Mystery writer would admire, and the tension is not relieved until the final page. The central characters are all fully realized, and James describes Venice so lovingly that the city almost becomes a character in its own right, a crumbling, beautiful, mysterious place where the incredible becomes real and the strange is almost commonplace. Critics have disagreed about the narrator's guilt and Miss Tita's complex motives, but few deny that James has presented the pair with masterful completeness. It has been suggested that the story was influenced by James' relationship with American novelist Constance Fenimore Woolson . Whatever the truth of this conjecture, the tale remains a vivid example of James' Narrative ability and sympathetic understanding of human Motivations . PLAY AND OPERA VERSIONS In 1962, ''The Aspern Papers'' was adapted for the stage by Michael Redgrave and successfully produced on Broadway . Wendy Hiller and Maurice Evans played the lead roles. The play has been revived a number of times since the original production. In 1998 the Dallas Opera presented the world premiere of Dominick Argento's opera '' The Aspern Papers ''. REFERENCES
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