The Aspern papers

Summary: Assuming a false name, an American editor and critic travels to Venice, and insinuates himself as a lodger into the palace belonging to Juliana Bordereau. He believes that Juliana possesses papers and poems written to her by the long-dead poet Jeffrey Aspern, and while these papers have a monetary value, they also represent a great deal more to the narrator. Juliana is now an elderly lady who lives in "obscurity" with her spinster niece, Tita. Officially, to those who have sought unpublished Aspern material in the past, Juliana and Tita state that no such papers exist. The narrator takes rooms in the palace with no clear plan in mind--except to ascertain that the papers really exist, and to acquire them ... somehow.

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