Henry James based the story on an anecdote he had heard when he was in Florence, Italy, in 1879. Claire Clairmont, the half-sister of Percy Bysshe Shelley's wife Mary Shelley and the mother of Lord Byron's daughter Allegra, was still alive and related how an unscrupulous Shelley devotee had posed as a lodger in order to find any unpublished papers. After the aged Claire died, her niece offered the papers to him, but at a price.
The portrait of the poet on the miniature is that of Percy Bysshe Shelley.
This free adaptation of the famous Henry James story was the only film to be directed by the actor Martin Gabel, who had never acted in a film at the time he made it.
In the late 1950s, Michael Redgrave successfully adapted the story for the London stage starring himself and Wendy Hiller. It was produced on Broadway in 1962, with Maurice Evans taking over the male lead; it ran for 93 performances there. The play was revived in the West End in the 1980s, with Sir Michael's daughter Vanessa, Christopher Reeve and, once more, Wendy Hiller - by now Dame Wendy and instead playing the elderly Juliana.
Henry James first published "The Aspern Papers" in the March-May editions of "The Atlantic Monthly". In the original story the heroine's name was Tita. In later editions of the story James changed the name to Tina.