The Aspern Papers, Henry James

For background to this fascinating work, see Michael Gorra's Portrait of a Novel, p. 178 - 179.

The background takes us back to "Claire Clairmont, the last survivor of the circle around Byron and Shelley. She had been Mary Shelley's stepsister and Byron's mistress, the mother of his daughter Allegra, and she survived into old age, dying at eighty in 1879. In  her last years she lived with a niece in Florence; rather poor, but guarding a trove of letters and other memorabilia. Then an American appeared, a sea captain from Boston named Silsbee."

And from that, "one of his [Henry James'] most perfect tales, The Aspern Tales.

This book, by Gorra is filled with such vignettes, and that's why I love to read.