The Turn of the Screw [Hardcover]

Henry James (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1, 2003

THE TURN OF THE SCREW is the greatest and most subtle of all English-language ghost stories. H.P. Lovecraft praised its "truly potent air of sinister menace" and "mounting tide of fright" and subsequent critics have argued long and hard over the central "problem" of the story: if the motifs of the traditional ghost story, in the hands of a master, are used to probe the deepest depths of the human psyche, do the resultant terrors spring from the objective return of the spirits of the dead, or from the fears, memories, and guilt the expectation of such apparitions may evoke? Are there any ghosts in this story at all? James himself might have been puzzled by that question. His own remarks make it clear that what he had in mind was a "sinister romance," inspired by a ghostly story he had heard from an Archbishop of Canterbury. He wrote of the "portentous evil" of the "demon-spirits" in the story, but it was his genius to make them so profoundly mysterious that THE TURN OF THE SCREW will survive any number of interpretations, and go on to chill and delight readers for centuries to come. THE TURN OF THE SCREW was memorably filmed as THE INNOCENTS (1961), arguably the finest cinematic ghost story of all time.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 172 pages
• Publisher: Wildside Press (May 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1592246605
• ISBN-13: 978-1592246601
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,192,412 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Still haunting after all these years., August 29, 2005

By 

Mary Whipple (New England) - See all my reviews
(COMMUNITY FORUM 04)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Turn of the Screw (Hardcover)

One of the most seductive of all ghost stories, Turn of the Screw is not a tale for young people inured to Halloween I and II or Tales from the Crypt. It is a sophisticated and subtle literary exercise in which the author creates a dense, suggestive, and highly ambiguous story, its suspense and horror generated primarily by what the author does NOT say and does not describe. Compelled to fill in the blanks from his/her own store of personal fears, the reader ultimately conjures up a more horrifying set of images and circumstances than anything an author could impose from without.

Written in 1898, this is superficially the tale of a governess who accepts the job of teaching two beautiful, young children whose uncle-guardian wants nothing to do with them. On a symbolic level, however, it is a study of the mores and prejudices of the times and, ultimately, of the nature of Evil. The governess fears that ghosts of the former governess Miss Jessel and her lover, valet Peter Quint, have corrupted the souls of little Flora and Miles and have won them to the side of Evil. The children deny any knowledge of ghosts, and, in fact, only the governess actually sees them. Were it not for the fact that the housekeeper, Mrs. Grose, can identify them from the governess's descriptions, one might be tempted to think that the governess is hallucinating.

Though the governess is certainly neurotic and repressed, this novel was published ten years before Freud, suggesting that the story should be taken at face value, as a suspenseful but enigmatic Victorian version of a Faustian struggle for the souls of these children. The ending, which comes as a shock to the reader, is a sign that such struggles should never be underestimated. As is always the case with James, the formal syntax, complex sentence structure, and elaborately constructed narrative are a pleasure to read for anyone who loves language, formality, and intricate psychological labyrinths. Mary Whipple

4.0 out of 5 stars The Screw Turns Slowly But Effectively!, July 14, 2006

By 

Darth Wader (Aylett, VA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Turn of the Screw (Hardcover)

Although this story churns slowly and with a writing style that many of us are not used to, it makes up for it with a great, chilling story that sticks with you after the last pages are over. This is one of those books you have to read in the quiet to concentrate on each word, but it is all the quiet that can make this book scare you. James' obviously did a masterful job on the story, with his cliffhanger ending, because to this day, people are still giving their interpretation of it and what it means. And this story was published over 100 years ago, in 1898. Any author would LOVE to have people still talking about a book like that, for better or worse. I love the characters throughout this story, and you begin to wonder what exactly is going on - is she seeing ghosts? Are the kids seeing ghosts? Has she lost her mind? All good questions and at the end, you still might be scratching your head, but it is still a satsifying conclusion that lets your creative mind decipher it all. In conclusion, this book is a pretty slow read considering it's only like 100 pages, but once you get half way, you're not going to want to put it down!