Turn of the Screw

The turn of the screw

By: James, Henry

The story unfolds with the arrival of a new governess at a remote country estate, who has been hired by the uncle of two young orphans to take complete charge of the children's lives and upbringing. Her first peaceful weeks are disturbed by the apparition of the ghosts of two evil servants who once served in the house.

Read-alikes

1.	The haunting of Hill House Jackson, Shirley, 1916-1965 Reason:  These elegantly written, atmospheric horror stories feature ambiguous and unreliable narration, intimate psychological detail, and a fine balance between supernatural terror and psychological delusion. -- Derek Keyser
2.	Frankenstein Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft, 1797-1851 Reason:  Readers who enjoy Gothic fiction that sends chills down their spines might enjoy both Frankenstein and The Turn of The Screw. The former is about a monster from a science project gone wrong and the latter is a ghost story. -- Katherine Johnson
3.	The woman in black Hill, Susan, 1942- Reason:  Set in the Victorian English countryside, these atmospheric ghost stories employ psychological suspense to induce subtle chills. Both novellas make use of framing stories and first-person narration to introduce elements of ambiguity into the tales, which concern children in peril. -- Gillian Speace

James's most famous tales include 'The Turn of the Screw,' written mostly in the form of a journal, was first published serially in Collier's Weekly, and then with another story in The Two Magics (1898). The protagonist is a governess, who works on a lonely estate in England. She tries to save her two young charges, Flora and Miles, two both innocent and corrupted children, from the demonic influence of the apparitions of two former servants in the household, steward Peter Quint and the previous governess Miss Jessel. Her employer, the children's uncle, has given strict orders not to bother him with any of the details of their education. Although the children evade the questions about the ghosts but she certain is that the children see them. When she tries to exorcize their influence, Miles dies in her arms.

The story inspired later a debate over the question of the "reality" of the ghosts, were her visions only hallucinations. In the beginning of his career James had rejected "spirit-rappings and ghost-raising," but in the 1880s he become interested in the unconscious and the supernatural. James wrote in 1908 that "Peter Quint and Miss Jessel are not "ghosts" at all, as we now know the ghost, but goblins, elves, imps, demons as loosely constructed as those of the old trials for witchcraft; if not, more pleasingly, fairies of the legendary order, wooing their victims forth to see them dance under the moon." Virginia Woolf thought that Henry James's beings have nothing in common with the violent old ghosts - "the blood-stained captains, the white horses, the headless ladies of dark lanes and windy commons." Edmund Wilson was convinced that the story was "primarily intended as a characterization of the governess."

The turn of the screw has been adapted several times into movies ofthe same name and inspired the following films: The innocents (1961), The haunting of Helen Walker (1995), Presence of mind (1999), The others (2001), and In a dark place (2006).

Henry James’ Turn of the Screw  1973    Lynn Redgrave

Turn of the Screw for Masterpiece Theater  1999  Colin Firth

Turn of the Screw  Opera by Benjamin Britten   DVD   2005    sung in English