Victorians! discussion

Our main group discussion for October will actually be broken into two works, The Aspern Papers and The Turn of the Screw, both by Henry James.

I have posted The Aspern Papers here to begin our read. The threads are still closed and won't open until October 1. I wanted to see if there was any comment on the reading order first though.

Choosing Aspern first was simply due to it being written the earliest by James. Since we haven't discussed any preferences by those participating in the read, I wanted to find out if any of us wanted to begin, instead, with The Turn of the Screw. Please let us know if you have views on this.

Well, I started reading with the Turn of the Screw, mostly because that's the better known of the stories (and I'm already pretty much hooked after only about 15 pages), but I can switch to the Aspern Papers if that's the decision to go first -- don't want to finish the Turn if I have to wait two weeks to post because I will have forgotten my key points. (Aging memory, sigh.)

I've read both before and will reread them both anyway (because they're some of my favourite HJ texts) so I don't have a preference - but I think The Aspern Papers is easier to get into / read so, perhaps, for people who haven't read (a lot of) Henry James before it would be better to start with that? I'm not sure.

I don't have a preference, but I plan on starting tonight, so whatever you all decide! I have read The Turn of the Screw before (long before!), but I don't think I have ever read The Aspern Papers before. I might, though, since I do have it in a collection of great short works by James.

I have been looking around at commentary on the two works, and it seems, as Andreea said, The Aspern Papers may get us into the flow of James better than Turn of the Screw, so we will start with Aspern. I will open those threads up tonight.

Please pardon us for going against your order, Everyman, and join in with Aspern first if you don't mind too much. I hope you can refresh those Turn of the Screw thoughts -- we may get to them sooner than two weeks -- we'll see what pace our group has.

So threads will go up for Turn of the Screw around mid-month, allowing us to concentrate on each story at a time.

So glad we have a group starting to gather to join in with this Autumn reading. Happy Autumn Everyone.

SarahC wrote: "Please pardon us for going against your order, Everyman, and join in with Aspern first if you don't mind too much. "

No problem at all. I just jumped the gun, my bad. I immediately switched to Aspern and am enjoying it (and even made a post on it already).

I've switched as well!
Waiting for the first discussion, even if I've just started it: chap. 3!

I hope no one will consider this bit of back story information to be a spoiler, but just in case, I'll put it in our spoiler format: (view spoiler)[ The Aspern Papers is based on the letters Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote to Mary Shelley's step sister, Claire Clairemont, who saved them until she died.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Aspe...
(hide spoiler)]

Lily, I will set up a background thread in the discussion thread. You and others can post similar information there. I will mark it as "spoilers possible."

I also agree with Andrea. This was much easier for me to get into and I switched.

Hi all, I will be offline, so will be taking a break from discussion tomorrow. On Sunday, I plan to post the threads for our continuing Henry James - The Turn of the Screw, and everyone can join when ready.