The Aspern Papers & The Figure in the Carpet
by Henry James

James, an American writer who spent most of his career in Britain, is considered one of the key figures in 19^th century literary realism. The World Literature Book Group will explore his shorter works in September. Set in Venice, The Aspern Papers is a novella inspired by the true story of a hoard of letters Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote to Mary Shelley’s stepsister. James depicts the struggle of a publisher to gain control of the cache of a similarly famous author’s papers. The narrator of Figure in the Carpet meets his favorite writer and becomes obsessed with discovering the secret meaning embedded in the author’s works.