THE ASPERN PAPERS posits a love affair between Jeffrey Aspern, a romantic poet of the early 19th century, deceased at the time of the story, and a beautiful young woman whom he called Julianna. In reality, Julianna has become an aged and reclusive spinster, Miss Bordereaux, who lives in seclusion in a barricaded villa in Venice with her niece, Miss Tina. An American editor, the principal character in this story, who is a leading scholar of Jeffrey Aspern, tracks Miss Bordereaux to her Venice redoubt, where he believes she has secreted valuable papers left to her by Jeffrey Aspern. The confrontation between the old world and the new, between European culture and American, Miss Bordereaux and her niece, serve to illustrate James' theme that culture can be neither acquired nor transplanted, but must be grown, one leaf and one branch at a time, in home soil.
