The Turn of the Screw (Dover Thrift Editions)

I am sure there are many reviews of Henry James' short novel out there, so let me start by praising this particular edition, published only a month ago. Needing to reread the book for a book club, I hesitated over the free text I downloaded on my iPad, then looked in a bricks-and-mortar store. There were several much cheaper options, in which WASHINGTON SQUARE was bound together with one or other of James' shorter works, but this one leaped off the shelf into the hand, lightweight yet firm, beautifully proportioned, the pages opening flat and marked with a silk ribbon. Time was when the Everyman Edition was an inexpensive way of buying the classics; now I find myself looking at the series for the satisfaction of fine book-binding and typography; the red-letter title page alone is an exemplar of classic elegance. Since I had tended to approach James as a chore as much as a pleasure, it was worth every penny to have an edition that was, physically and visually, a joy to read.

Another joy is the brilliant introduction by Arthur Phillips. One of the most daring things he does is to tackle head-on what so many people dislike about James, the discursive niceties of his style. "And yet," Phillips says, "it would be difficult to write a first paragraph more likely to repel new readers to Henry James than the opening of Washington Square." He then proceeds to analyze the first four sentences that, in his view, "could serve as a parody, without altering a digression," writing so hilariously that we are immediately on his side. But he goes on to demonstrate what it is that the style CAN do -- and moreover do supremely well -- with a psychological insight so modern as to be at odds with the Victorian prissiness of its diction; it is surely not incidental that James' brother William was one of the pioneers of the science of psychology. By being willing to laugh at James, Phillips makes us that much more ready to laugh with him. Though this is ultimately a sad book, its underlying humor and discreet irony makes delicious reading throughout, just for the pleasure of watching James skewer his victims with delicate jabs of his poison pen -- and he is very much an equal-opportunity assassin.

I first read the book in college, I think, and remember its basic theme of a young woman's chance at love blighted by the will of a domineering father. In my memory, the moral balance was firmly tilted in favor of the plain but innocent heiress Catherine and against the cold manipulation of her widowed father, Dr. Austin Sloper, a society doctor in 1830s New York. But one thing that Phillips demonstrates, by almost mathematical calculation, is how much this is in fact a four-way balance -- Washington SQUARE -- and altogether more even-handed. Reading it now, I find it harder to totally condemn Dr. Sloper, easier to sympathize with Catherine but harder to like her, and fascinated by all that we do NOT know about Morris Townsend, her charming but penniless suitor. And Phillips makes a point of how important to the plot is Catherine's aunt, Mrs. Lavinia Penniman, "a stunted adolescent and romantic meddler, bent on projecting her own thwarted sexuality onto the innocent girl." He is perfectly right, and it links the book immediately to James' more extreme treatment of similar themes in his other short novels, WHAT MAISIE KNEW and THE TURN OF THE SCREW, and even to his almost-contemporary masterpiece, THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY. Reading the book with Phillip's guidance was something akin to enjoying the balance, thematic interplay, and emotional range of a late Beethoven string quartet.

Arthur Phillips again: "WASHINGTON SQUARE is a very modern novel indeed: all questions, no answers." He is totally right, and how I love the questions!

The edition of the novella (published by Arcturus) has a introduction which indicates that James wrote it as a potboiler to pay the bills. I suppose that it could be consider that because there is little character development. However, the novella has attracted readers and other writers since its [publication in Colliers magazine in 1898. It must contain something more than can be expected in some genre magazine piece.

I read it and found it to be strangely detached. There was horror in the novella as two lost souls attempt to steal the lives of two children and for most of the novella succeed in their quest. I believe that most of this detachment is the detachment of a current reader like me from the mores of the class bound society of the UK in the late 19th century. There is much made in the novel of social rank and the fact that the governess protagonist is in fact a menial well below the upper-class children. In fact, much of the evil found in Peter Quint is his rejection of the tenets of social rank. he had the temerity to put himself in all situations and did not give true consideration to his lowly place as some sort of gentleman's valet. The conflict in the novella can them interpreted as a social conflict in which a menial valet and governess attempt to rise above their places and find life as upper-class people. 21st century readers will find horror in their attempt to subvert the children but 19th century readers would, in my opinion, be sensitive to the social dynamics of the book.

The sharing of scary stories on Christmas Eve is a European tradition that does not seem to have made it to shores of the New World. Luckily, we have an account of one such evening in The Turn of the Screw, by Henry James. To this modern day reader, the effect is one of looking through a telescope and discovering I can see the past. It makes me nostalgic for slower days, when people had time and inclination to sit and tell stories, rather than chase their next digital high. Perhaps the scariest aspect of The Turn of the Screw is the sense I got of my own modern isolation. The internet and smartphones connect us twenty-four/seven, but the connections are attenuated by the electronic mediators and the physical distance. Even when we are close, someone puts a screen between us to snap photo evidence to feed the sickly web that these days passes for friendship.

The Turn of the Screw opens with a group of people sharing stories. They take a common thrill from the latest tale, which involved a child who saw a ghost; such an event is commonplace in modern horror, but I am given to think that this was something shocking in James's time. The story tellers provide the narrative frame for the main action, and engage in some witty dialog, including the famous question, "If [one] child gives the effect another turn of the screw [of emotions], what do you say to two children?" So begins the main action, which is read from a written account some twenty years kept in secret. The introductory frame is not returned to, and the absence of the return of these witty characters increases the shock of horror at the end of the framed tale, as well as exacerbates my modern isolation.

The horror of The Turn of the Screw is built slowly, an imperceptible dread rising like mist from the morning surface of a still lake. When the horrible face appears at the window, and the reality of who - what - he is becomes manifest, well, I had a nightmare. As a horror aficionado, it's very very rare for anything to shake me. Yes, I may jump at a cheap scare in a movie, but the deeper fright of true horror is a once-a-year event. James spun a tight cocoon around the narrator, giving her nowhere to seek help even as she realizes that the children she protects are plotting against her with the very evil from which she intends to shield them. The monstrous corruption of two angelic children, along with the very strong (but never explicitly stated) allusions to sexual predation really "turns the screws." Even when the oldest child turns creepy, basically hitting on his nanny, the narrator, there is sadness that his innocence has been twisted. As a reader I wanted some giant fireball to send the evil perverting the children right back to Hell, but James's ending was both quieter and more heartbreaking. The children had become vessels, and broken of their contact with the evil that filled them, they succumbed in the only way that they could. The story ends with a sense of disquiet. I imagine the witty characters from the framing story sitting around the dying fire, at the end of a dying year, too overcome to speak. In a sense, their silence is humanity's only answer to impenetrable, implacable evil: words can't stop it, and possibly nothing can.

PS I read the Giunti Classics reprinting of The Turn of the Screw. I wanted to make my review available to other readers, so I've added it to this book. This is one of the pitfalls of reviewing classics which have been reprinted several times!

My impressions of The Turn of the Screw (only):

Having read this many years ago, I decided to revisit it and found it just as trying a read as I remembered; although it has its rewards for the tenacious reader.

As a self-confessed Grammar Nazi, I was surprised to find James' governess use the term "literally" more than once in what I believe is an incorrect manner (she says she "literally slept at her post" when she had not really fallen asleep.) I thought the misuse of this word was modern, as when someone says they "literally lost their mind" when they mean figuratively.

There are also some obscure words ("asseverate") to add to your vocabulary. The edition I read (Wordsworth Classics that also contained The Aspen Papers) has notes in the back to explain references that were probably understood by readers in 1898.

P.S. Although it contains a major spoiler, check out the satiric You Tube video in which Hitler rails against his staff as he asseverates his interpretation of the story.

On the TV show, Whose Line Is It Anyway?, there's an improvisational game called, "If You Know What I Mean..." This short novel reminded me of that since it's jam-packed with sexual double entendres. It's presented as a ghost story, but it's really about sex, both homo and hetero. The title, for example, can be taken at face value as ratcheting up the drama. On another level, "screw" is a slang term for sexual intercourse. I interpreted the turn, therefore, to mean the conversion or changing of Miles from homosexual to heterosexual orientation by his governess.

Homosexuality, or "queerness" as Henry James puts it obliquely, was viewed as a sickness at best, a monstrosity at worst. Indeed, up until the late 1960's, it was viewed as a crime in England. Infamously, Alan Turing and many others were given the option of jail time or hormone therapy as a cure. Thus, it isn't surprising that James chose the horror novel as a vehicle for his meditations. In fact, he prefaces the story by having the storyteller call it "general uncanny ugliness and horror and pain."

This is a riveting book (no pun intended) that can be read in a night. It successfully conveys sexual desire, repression, awakening, and the prevailing social notion that homosexuality must be "cured" or exorcised like a demon.

Dreadful dreadfulness.
I always wondered what the title of Henry James' famous ghost story means. Now I know and it is no spoiler to tell you, as the explanation is given on page 1. A ghost story is made more ghostly when a child is involved. (This takes us right into a great horror tradition, from Goethe's Erlkoenig to the superb ghost film 'The Others' with Nicole Kidman.)

The frame is a familiar one: people in a gothic mansion, 19th century England, telling each other ghost stories after dinner.
One man offers two turns of the screw. He makes things complicated by not telling the story in his own words, rather he must read it from a manuscript, that the late writer gave to him some time ago...
Magnificent set up, isn't it.

The writer of the manuscript is a young woman who joins a bachelor's household as a governess. The man has to take care of 2 children, his nephew and niece, who lost their parents in India.
The kids are kept at the country seat, where the governess will be mistress over a household of servants. There had been a predecessor, who had unfortunately died. The uncle does not want to be troubled with any problems or questions, ever, and he never visits.

The woman is delighted with the pretty place and with the pretty little girl. The little boy will arrive 2 days later from a boarding school ... From which he has been mysteriously expelled. Anxieties begin to build.

They are masterfully strengthened by the sight of an inexplicable stranger who appears briefly at the mansion, a few times. She nearly freaks out...from her descriptions, the householder identifies the man as the master's valet. The man had died last year... The women fear that the valet is looking for the children...a second ghost shows up, and the certainty that the children are aware of both, and that they are somehow involved in a conspiracy... How to protect the kids?
Enough.

This is not HJ's first ghost story, but it is the longest and the most unrestrained, creepy one. Suspense sets in early on. The apparition doesn't let us wait for the last pages, as in some other stories. Classy job. Elegant entertainment. Among the top of the genre.

We will never know whether we are meant to believe the narrator. Is she a nut case? She is certainly out of her depth as an educator. She has lost her authority with the kids and is on the defensive.
Generations of lit scientists have puzzled over the meaning of this story. Good job, Henry!
And quite a few horror stories and films have picked up the theme of the angelic children with suspect attitudes, motives, and powers.

Some have commented on the slowness or lack of development in this novel. This is not true. Possibly because Henry James style is more leisurely and well-thought out, his prose may seem tedious. However, he is an author who knows how to use language and he does not have that in your face and unimaginative style so popular used by today's writers.
This is one of his little gems and it is only with thoughtful reading and analysis that the full impact of the story is revealed. On the surface it appears as a sad, unfulfilled romance. It is really about the manipulations of two men trying to control the heroine.
Dr Sloper is emotionally remote man who has lost the wife and son he loved dearly and sees himself saddled with a lackluster replacement in his daughter, Catherine. By his imperious manner and distant manner, he keeps her in fear of him. By his lack of expectations and unstated displeasure at what he sees as her failures, he has instilled her with the very insecurity and and feeling of inferiority that he distains. He expects her to fail and so she does.
Aunt Pennimann, the only female to which Catherine has any emotional ties, is more interested in using Catherine's situation to fulfill her own romantic yearnings. While she is well-meaning, she has no skill in helping her charge develop or provide true emotional support.
Morris Townsend sees Catherine as a means to an end. He is willing to use Catherine and manipulate her love to obtain position and the lifestyle to which he would like to become accustomed. Whether or not he really loves Catherine is not the issue, but his attempt to use her and his underlying motives are far from romantic.
While some see Catherine Roper as weak, she really is the strongest character in the novel. Torn between her love for her father and betrothed, she remains true to herself. She states her feelings, intentions, and desires without wavering in her purpose. Her rebellion against both her father and Morris is subtle, like her personality. In the end, she breaks free of others' control and lives her life to suit herself.
A nice novel if you are willing to look beyond the surface.

The first element to clear up is the date of publication. Henry James could not at that time when he wrote this strongly anti-gay, as we would say today, novella using ghosts to create tension ignore Oscar Wilde’s Ghost of Canterville in which Oscar Wilde in 1887 makes fun of Americans who believe in ghosts so much that they can shoot peas with peashooters at them, up to the final peace agreement the Americans negotiate with that ghost. Henry James takes quite a serious approach towards the two ghosts of his story, meaning it is not any device to frighten the readers, but a dramatic element in the story without which it does not work.

He could not either ignore the situation in England, where he situates the action, at the time since Oscar Wilde was sentenced to a two year prison term for his gay sexuality with young men if not teenagers. Note at the time the age was not at stake, only the orientation. The sentence was implemented from 1895 to 1897. Then Oscar Wilde moved to Paris where he died in 1900. Since Henry James situates his story in England he had to take into account the real paranoia about any gay orientation, though if Oscar Wilde had not “seduced” (and that seduction was long lasting for the “ victim”) the son of a Lord, himself to become a Lord, he might very well have gone through without even a trial or a fine. That conception of society divided into upper tiers that have to remain cut off from any intimate relation with all other middle or lower social tiers is absolutely dominant at the time in England. And we must keep in mind the subject was so pregnant that it will be the core of D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover (1928, censored in England up to 1960), and it was a core element in the recent TV series Downton Abbey, whose action is situated in the 1910s and 1920s. Henry James’ novella can only be understood in his time within that social and sexual context.

But in the 21st century a critic has to be more creative, though some are sticking to the old approach.

This old approach only takes into account two basic interpretations with a mongrelized third one. The first one is that the two ghosts, Quint and Miss Jessel, are real and we have a real ghost story that obviously has not read Oscar Wilde, but today that kind of story does not work, except for teenagers (and young ones at that) on television. The second interpretation is that the governess (who does not have a name, and that cannot be gratuitous) suffers from hallucinations and is misled by her own possessive and protective, we could say extreme maternal, desires. The third interpretation is a little bit of each of the first two because Henry James tries to be non-committed on the dual choice. But one thing is sure for all such critics: the two ghosts tried to sexually possess, and might even have succeeded, at least in the case of the boy and Quint, the two children who are at the time of these events seven for the girl and nine for the boy. The story told by the new governess takes place when they are respectively eight and ten. I personally have not found one element that is clear about Flora or Miles having intercourse of any type with Miss Jessel and Quint

I would like to insist here on what is a shortcoming of the novella itself, the fact that Henry James does not really examine and scrutinize the psychological situation of the two kids, and then I will try to explore a modern interpretation of the anonymous governess.

The shortcoming is why and how the two kids end up in an isolated country mansion of an upper class London man who is a bachelor and the uncle of the kids. This story that is underused is essential to evaluate the children.

They lost their parents in India two years ago when the new governess arrives. They were uprooted from India then and entrusted to their upper class uncle in London who is a bachelor and uses the services of a valet who apparently wears some clothes of his master, which is frowned upon by the new governess when she is told but perfectly tolerated by the master. This proves nothing as for sexual orientation, but it does show something about the social orientation of this uncle, though his not wanting the two kids in his London home seems to show he does not want to be bothered by them and/or he wants to protect them from his own life style which is not specified in orientation, sexual or social likewise. So after losing their parents and being uprooted from India the are uprooted from their uncle’s London home and sent to live with quite a few servants in a countryside mansion of their uncle’s, a mansion that is composite: old sections from a several century old structure that looks medieval (crenellated towers) and a more modern structure in-between, meaning from the 19th century, or maybe the end of the 18th century.

This second uprooting sets the kids under the responsibility of two people, with servants around, including a housekeeper: a governess, Miss Jessel, and the uncle’s valet, Quint. Miss Jessel is responsible for the education of the kids and particularly of the young girl, whereas Quint is responsible for the upbringing of the young boy. The novella insinuates that the two kids developed very intimate (in time, which is the only parameter that is specified) relations, Miss Jessel with the girl Flora, and Quint with the boy Miles, often referred to as Mr. Miles. The intimate relations can easily be explained by the trauma of the loss of the parents and the double trauma of the double uprooting. There is absolutely no element that implies this intimacy is sexual, hence pedophile.

But for a reason that is called a scandal, with once again no specification, Miss Jessel has to go home, that is to say she is fired. There is some innuendo about the scandal but we cannot say if Miss Jessel, a governess who has to be young and pure, hence unmarried and virginal, did something unacceptable with Quint or anyone else. The novella seems to imply she did not do anything with the kids and at the end Miles clearly says he did not do anything bad with her. So we have to come to the idea she had a relation with Quint. And she dies soon after leaving for a cause we are not told. Soon after, Quint dies accidentally though without any detail. The two kids find themselves in another traumatic situation and Flora is temporarily taken care of by Mrs. Grose, the Housekeeper, who must be married but at the same time no husband is attributed to her, and Miles is sent to a boarding school. This situation is of course another trauma for the two kids who are separated and the boy sent to a boarding school which is not the best place for a traumatized child. No surprise when we learn at the end that he told things (which are not specified) to some of his “friends” there and these friends told these things to others including the teaching personnel, which explains the fact Miles is sent back home for the summer but with a letter telling his guardian he will not be taken again in the Fall.

What is missing here is the PTSS or PTSD that has to have developed in the two kids. Their Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome or Disorder must have been extremely high due to the successive traumas and uprootings they experienced at a very young age: between 6 and 8 for Flora and 8 and 10 for Miles. In fact it is this PTSS/D that could explain the final episodes of Flora refusing to see the governess again after a final ghost event with Miss Jessel, and then the death of Miles after another and final ghost event with Quint. The two kids are literally haunted by these ghosts that are only seen by the governess and that she imposes onto them in what must be considered as psychological if not even psychiatric torture: bringing up the last two people with whom they had some intimate equilibrium, hence maybe peace in their traumatic situations. And this governess is more than simply agitating the ghosts: she tries to force the kids, Flora first and Quint second, to admit they had a “bad” relation with the two ghosts when they were alive, which amounts to depriving the children of the recollection they may have kept of the two people who have been taken away by death after obscure circumstances, which had to reactivate the death of their own parents. The governess does not understand that and yet Henry James does not exploit it, so that the final position of Flora rejecting the governess and the final death of Miles remain unexplained. Miles does not die of fear, but he dies because that is the only way the governess leaves him to keep in contact with the last man he has had some intimate and balanced, maybe happy, relation with.

But the novella must be interpreted by critics with modern resources.

Henry James is telling the story in which a male character is bringing up the notebook of the nameless governess in which she tells what happened to her when in charge of Flora and Miles in the countryside mansion in Bly. In other words Henry James provides us with a personal diary by a character he invents and constructs but he constructs her only with her own words which have to be analyzed psychologically, socially and even from a non-clinical psychiatric point of view. This anonymous governess speaking in the first person is suffering of an extremely serious psychiatric disorder that has to be identified from what she says herself. Everything being fiction told by Henry James.

Her extremely strict and violent opposition to any sexual relation between Flora and Miss Jessel or between Miles and Quint, motivated both sexually and socially, reveals on her side a sexual and social heritage that is not dealt with except with a couple of allusion to her own brothers and sisters that lead nowhere.

The fact that she is a lot more motivated in her hostility by Miles and Quint than by Flora and Miss Jessel, shows she develops a sort of jealousy that would be purely pedagogical if equal on the two kids, but that is a lot more intricate and intimate since it is essentially directed towards the boy. She takes a stronger anti-gay position with Miles than with Flora. I say anti-gay and not anti-pedophile because she insists on the social dimension of the crime: Quint is behaving towards Miles not as a subservient servant but as something like an equal who can even wear his own master’s clothes, Miles’ uncle’s clothes. But what reveals the very obscure motivations of the governess is first the strong protective attitude: as such she is maternal. But second it is excessively physical and cuddling, hugging, embracing and kissing, including when Miles is in bed and she is sitting on his bed are impulsive, vast in time and repetitive. We are beyond anything that is normal for an adult woman and a ten year old boy who clearly asks her to leave him alone. She is obviously in love with the child and her desire is intimate though in her consciousness not sexual, but she does not see that all the hugging, embracing, cuddling, kissing, etc., is sexual and cannot be anything but sexual for a ten year old boy who must be starting to feel some desires and has spend one term in a boarding school with other boys and who longs for going back to be with boys because he wants to be a man. He uses this argument to build some distance with the governess who does not seem to understand. In other words her attitude is sexually motivated, even if unconsciously for the governess, is sexually received and interpreted and this time not unconsciously at all for Miles though it is for the governess, and is experienced as a frustration at least, in fact a castration, and this is conscious for Miles though unconscious for the governess.

But why does she condemn that intimacy with Quint and not with herself? The rejection of such gay relationship is clearly a way for her to hide and keep under control her own impulses. The rejection is typical of her time. It is also a way to cathartically sublimate and desexualize her own impulses. But this catharsis should also bring her to the point where she should step back and let Miles be, and obviously it does not work like that, which means her impulses are deeply rooted in her unconscious and her impulses are both pedophile and incestuous since she assumes the protective maternal stance of a quasi-mother, of a mother substitute in a situation of total absence of the real mother.

If then we associate the PTSS/D of the children to this falsely cathartic incestuous and pedophile impulse of the governess along with her extreme and excessive rejection of any gay or social mixing for the children we have to come to the conclusion that this attitude is completely castrating for Miles to the point he can only think of one escape to rejoin the last man with whom he had a relation, Quint. Since Quint is dead, though he does not see his ghost, he has to die to be with him again. Then the very end is clear when Miles “admits” his relation with Quint. Under duress more than simple pressure Miles admits he is seeing a vision of someone. The governess imagine it is a “she,” thinking of Miss Jessel. Miles answer curtly: “It’s he?”

At this moment the governess becomes a torturer that only works (and that was her main characteristic all along) on what she conjures up from what she considers as signs though they are never confirmed by real words from anyone. Here is that imperial attitude:

“I was so determined to have all my proof that I flashed into ice to challenge him. “Whom do you mean by ‘he’?”

And Miles’ answer is not an answer to her but to himself, to the vision he has in his mind of the only possibility he has to escape that dragon of a governess:

“Peter Quint—you devil!”

And of course she does not understand he is talking to Quint in his mind, not the ghost she sees at this moment, but the real memory of the intimacy he had with Squint, an intimacy that implies no sexual relation, but only a friendly and socially uneven but accepted relation. She at once sees meaning where there is nothing:

“His face gave again, round the room, its convulsed supplication. “Where?” [says Miles of course]

And her conclusion is fatal, lethal. It is the last thread she cuts. She finally lets him go to Quint, but not the ghost, though she does not know.

“They are in my ears still, his supreme surrender of the name and his tribute to my devotion.”

And yet this harpy of a woman has to push even further:

“What does he matter now, my own?—what will he ever matter? I have you,” I launched at the beast, “but he has lost you for ever!” Then, for the demonstration of my work, “There, there!” I said to Miles.”

For her the ghost is real and can be positioned in real space, the competition is won and she strikes the last two blows to Miles.

In other words her deranged sexual and emotional impulses lead her to a crime, a murder, she commits with only words and she triumphs just before discovering her murder because she thinks she has Miles to herself forever.

So, to conclude, this ghost story has little to do with ghosts being real or hallucinations. It is a deep story about a fully repressed and perverted woman who is so haunted by her own sexual impulses which she tries to control by her absolute rejection of anything sexual that she invents ghosts and fantasized relations between the children she is supposed to take care of and the ghosts she imagines. This enters in conflict with the PTSS/D of the children, though insufficiently developed by Henry James, so that Flora rejects her totally and Miles dies to escape the mental castrating prison in which she tries to lock him up.

We can hardly reproach Henry James with not knowing what we know today but we definitely have to reproach critics with not going beyond the manipulation Henry James works on us. Think for example of the name of the valet, Quint, meaning “five.” Thus Quint is the pentacle, the devil in simple symbols and then the last words addressed to Quint by Miles are “you devil!” This name then becomes friendly from Miles who is going to stop his heart to rejoin Quint. But what a manipulation in which the nameless governess falls head first! Apparently many critics have fallen into it too. I am of course here only speaking of what has been written on Henry James’ novella that was adapted to the cinema, television, ballet and the opera, not to speak of theater.

What surprises me most is why critic as so reluctant at identifying incestuous and pedophile impulses in women. And we do know they exist.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU

This old-fashioned spooky tale sneaks up on the listener/reader. I actually tried to read a copy of the e-book on an e-reader I had before the Kinlde Fire. The blasted thing kept forgetting where I left off (and also had a poor battery life and I'm a swift reader on good days). It was on my Kindle to-read list. I thought Emma Thompson and Richard Armitage both did a really fine job of narrating this title. The somewhat old-fashioned prose and style won't be everyone's cup of tea, but I really enjoyed this audio presentation. This is getting four stars instead of five because some of the loose ends aren't really wrapped up by the end, but who can argue with one of the classics? There are reasons many a newer book and film have copied Henry James' ideas from this book. It's truly dark and haunting, but in a rather understated way. There's no true "gore" in the modern sense, more just a building sense of dread and urgency.

Henry James’s 1898 novella “The Turn of the Screw” has remained one of my favorite books since I first read this work in high school some decades back. As an adolescent, I had struggled through James’s intricate and often stilted prose; nonetheless, I found the story itself absolutely captivating! Over the years, I have reread “The Turn of the Screw” many times and still find the story fresh and intriguing. I also have watched many different dramatizations of it on TV and film to gain greater insight into the author’s intention and style. In critical literary circles, the debate rages over whether this tale is a supernatural or a psychological one: in other words, are the “apparitions” at Bly House truly ghostly manifestations or the result of a delusional woman’s own fantasy? (Freudian scholars in particular have had a “field day” with this novella!) From the start, I had made up my mind that it was indeed a tale of the supernatural and, after just reading “The Turn of the Screw” once again, still adhere to this view.

Certainly, I believe, Henry James provides enough clues in this story for just such an interpretation. Most critically, the new governess is able to provide a detailed description of the deceased Peter Quint and Miss Jessel, even though she has neither seen nor heard of them prior to the latter’s “visitations.” Additionally, the “queer” behavior (as in the nineteenth-century usage meaning “odd” or “unusual”) of the children Miles and Flora indicate that something indeed is very amiss at Bly. The fact that the governess alone appears to witness these apparitions does not contradict this reading; as is common in supernatural tales, ghosts can manifest themselves to whomever they please. Nevertheless, the “psychological” state of the governess in her confrontation with the supernatural is an essential ingredient to this story’s tragic conclusion.

The new governess, the daughter of a country vicar who has led a sheltered life, quickly makes the presence of the ghostly figures at Bly House a “contest of wills” on a number of planes. First, she determines to “save” the innocent children from these denizens of the dead, although the nature and extent of the latter's "threat" is unclear. She thus engages in a struggle of wills with the ghost of Peter Quint in particular. Clearly such “spiritual warfare” (to borrow modern terminology) is beyond her limited capacity and experience. Although the novella frequently mentions the household of Bly attending a local church, the governess never turns to the parish vicar to discuss her concerns. Nor does she write to her father, who is also a clergyman, to ask for assistance. She wishes to “save” Miles and Flora alone and thus vindicate the trust of the children’s uncle, who employed her for this caregiver position. The fact that she is secretly enamored of this flashy gentleman serves only to resolve her determination.

Secondly, as no one but the governess appears to be conscious of these ghostly visitations, she attempts to force the housekeeper, Mrs. Gross, to believe that she is not mad and delusional. Every little victory she achieves in this regard becomes a grand “vindication” of her sanity and claims. Mrs. Gross, a simple and illiterate country woman, is incapable of comprehending the magnitude of the supernatural infestation at Bly and so makes a very unwilling and inept partner is this deadly game of spiritual warfare. Moreover, the governess dismisses Mrs. Gross’s unending pleas for “outside intervention” due mainly to her own pride. She has been given the uncle’s confidence to educate and care for the children and, so, she will prove to all that she is worthy of such a task. Throughout most of the novella, the governess thus refuses to involve the children’s uncle in this supernatural affair. Certainly, he had asked not to be “bothered” on any occasion with the household affairs at Bly and made this stipulation part of his contract with the governess. Nevertheless, the latter's desire to “please” her employer, one with whom she is clearly infatuated, overrules the sound advice of Mrs. Gross more than the terms of her employment.

More importantly, however, the governess remorselessly confronts her young charges with "proof" that they are continually consorting with and increasingly under the control of the dead. She becomes suspicious of their every action and word, believing (rightly?) that they are concealing their dealings with the ghosts of Peter Quint and Miss Jessel. Little Miles especially becomes the target of her attempts to force the children to “confess” that this is so. As her efforts to exact such a confession become more blatant and brutal, the children turn on their potential “savior.” Thus, the “good-intentioned” governess becomes the object of the children’s fear and hate – not the “malignant” apparitions of Peter Quint and Miss Jessel. Due to her relentless drive to prove herself and confirm her sanity, the governess thus sets in motion the tragic climax of this supernatural story.

Henry James brilliantly introduces “The Turn of the Screw” with a prologue involving a group of well-to-do travelers who are sharing ghost stories one Christmas Eve during a stay over at “an old house” -- one not unlike that of Bly. The prologue serves to set the stage for the tragic tale to follow: the (actual?) encounter of the governess and children with the ghosts of Peter Quint and Miss Jessel. Unfortunately, all film and TV productions of “The Turn of the Screw” leave out this portion of the novella; thus, they impatiently jump into the main story itself. This neglect is a grave oversight, in my opinion. James’s prologue heightens the novella’s suspense at its very beginning, thus engaging the readers’ interest at once. While the principal story at Bly unfolds slowly and in stages, the reader is already on guard for some supernatural happenings and so reads the text more closely for clues. The same would be true for viewers of a film or TV production of “The Turn of the Screw.”

I thus highly recommend Henry James’s novella to all aficionados of the supernatural and classic literature. Those wishing to view a faithful and polished production of this work should turn to the ExxonMobile Masterpiece Theatre's 2004 presentation of "The Turn of the Screw," starring the talented English actress Johdi May in the lead role. For those desiring a more supernatural and terrifying adaptation of this classic tale should turn to the 1961 feature film entitled “The Innocents,” starring the well-known actress Deborah Kerr, which is eerily shot in black-and-white.

There are countless ambiguities in this book, not only in what is taking place in the governess’ mind but also in the general dialogue or events in the plot, and there are so many points that have a sense of double meaning. There are, undoubtedly, questions left unanswered about both the narrator and what is inherently taking place there at the estate.

I think one of the distractions that turns readers off of this work is simply James’ writing style. His prose is quite dense, and difficult to navigate and wade through. His sentence structure is a bit of chore, and takes a bit of steam away from the actual plot. It definitely takes awhile to get used to and can really offput what is really a good ghost story that builds as the novel moves forward.

Perhaps the most fascinating aspect of James’ The Turn of the Screw is that it is not only very gothic and disturbing, but works ultimately on two—or maybe more--levels of interpretation. There is what is seemingly taking place, and there is the interpretation of what is taking place. Narrative viewpoint is key , too. There are many murky elements within the plot that purposely skew things, making it unclear if the governess is clearly unstable or if things are definitely quite ghostly about the estate. Beyond that, there are the interpretations of the governess, what she sees, and the history between Quint and the former governess, and those reacting to the governess.

There are some reviewers who dismiss the book simply because of James’ prose, which, while I can validate to some degree. Still, it is a pity, because maybe they are missing quite a compelling ghost story. What is amazing about The Turn of the Screw is that it ultimately gives us, as a reader, a chance to try to decipher the true state of things, be it governess’ state of mind, or other workings or happenings in the story. Are there sinister forces at work on the children? Is there anything to that? Or is this all a misinterpretation of things? Is she truly trying to protect the children, Miles and Flora? Or are we dealing with an unreliable narrator thoughout? In short, one reader may see something entirely different from the next reader, which, to me, is quite compelling. Even literary critics and novelists have argued over the true meaning of this novel.

Over all, The Turn of the Screw was an enjoyable read, even though it took a bit to get into. The payoff was worth the trouble, in my estimation.

If you are looking for a movie that gives a good visualization to James’ novella, then check out The Innocents (1961), starring Deborah Kerr. Filmed in black and white, and with the definitive look and ambience of this book, it really works eloquently, with its creepy vibe and unsettling score, as a great and faithful adaptation of this work.

being a literary person , i feel i have to rate this 5 stars. i always watch the movie, the heiress, whenever it appears on tv. it is and will always be my favorite movie of its kind. i mean by this that i can definitely relate to the character of catherine. catherine was a very emotionally abused woman with a terribly strict father. my father was old school and similar in temperment. although in appearance i didn't resemble catherine, my father never thought anybody i dated ever was good enough for me. i was somewhat of an heiress, because my father owned quite a bit of property. Now, that being said, yesterday after watching the heiress for the umpteenth time, i remembered and read the credits that the movie was based on henry james, washington square. i have read james' various works and am all too aware of his tedious style. i must say to finally make my point, that although this work is a literary classic, it was quite a disappointment when compared to the movie. i must commend the person who wrote the screenplay. the ending was exquisite and definitely gave a punch, whereas the book actually left one hanging and really had no flair.it was just flat and dull.

Henry James, the most English of English novelists, takes a stab at writing a Horror Story, and while the results are not Twenty-First Century chilling, James does manage to create a creepy, unsettling, appropriately reserved tale of ghosts and existential terror, in a typically understated James manner. The book sets the scene with a group of friends telling ghost stories around a fire. In the story we are thrown into, a young governess is hired to care for two children who recently loss their mother and live alone with their frequently absent father in a country estate. The governess starts to see figures that no one else seem to see; the children start acting mysteriously; and the rest of the household seem wary of the governess' claims that all is not normal at the house.
While lacking the obvious traits that define many an American horror story- violence, blood, dead bodies- "The Turn of the Screw" nonetheless seeps under the readers' skin and leaves then unsettled and slightly disturbed. Creepy by suggestion, and leaving more to the imagination than on the page, this novella is a worthy addition to the Henry James library.

Victor grew up reading the works of Paracelsus, Agrippa, and Albertus Magnus, the alchemists of the time. Toss in a little natural philosophy (sciences) and you have the making of a monster. Or at least a being that after being spurned for looking ugly becomes ugly. So for revenge the creature decides unless Victor makes another (female this time) creature, that Victor will also suffer the loss of friends and relatives. What is victor to do? Bow to the wishes and needs of his creation? Or challenge it to the death? What would you do?

Although the concept of the monster is good, and the conflicts of the story well thought out, Shelly suffers from the writing style of the time. Many people do not finish the book as the language is stilted and verbose for example when was the last time you said, "Little did I then expect the calamity that was in a few moments to overwhelm me and extinguish in horror and despair all fear of ignominy of death."

Much of the book seems like travel log filler. More time describing the surroundings of Europe than the reason for traveling or just traveling. Many writers use traveling to reflect time passing or the character growing in stature or knowledge. In this story they just travel a lot.

This book is definitely worth plodding through for moviegoers. The record needs to be set strait. First shock is that the creator is named Victor Frankenstein; the creature is just "monster" not Frankenstein. And it is Victor that is backwards which added in him doing the impossible by not knowing any better. The monster is well read in "Sorrows of a Young Werther," "Paradise Lost," and Plutarch's "Lives." The debate (mixed with a few murders) rages on as to whether the monster was doing evil because of his nature or because he was spurned?

I gave Washington Square five stars, not because it is my cup of tea, but because it is well done for what it is. After all, it is by Henry James, so I did not expect it to be a warm-hearted and impassioned book, and it would be foolish to rate it on my preferences, rather than on what sort of book it is and whether it accomplished what it set out to do. It was easy to read -- short and well paced -- and I finished it in less than a day.

This is social fiction from the point of view of a social metaphysician, as Ayn Rand would call him, but it treats well of its subject, which in fact is the slight feelings of non-limerent, neurotypical people whose view of life is strictly delimited by social norms. It is wrong to suppose that such people do not have feelings -- just as wrong as it is for them to suppose that another type of person has no feelings. But sometimes it is hard for us to recognize the depth of feeling in a person not of our own type.

A good comparison for this simple story of an ordinary woman jilted due to the machinations of a father (or father figure) on her less than upstanding suitor, you might read those scenes in The Fountainhead between and among Catherine Halsey, Peter Keating and Ellsworth Toohey.

Catherine is the name in both books of a girl who is not unusually smart nor unusually pretty but who has genuine feelings and is at least in some measure capable of standing up for herself, but whose would-be lover is not up to snuff and is frightened away by a parental figure who is against the match.

In the end, she has to suffer mostly silently, until she has gotten used to her single status, but years later when her former suitor sees her again, she seems impervious to the reminder of how she had felt earlier.

Because Henry James was not a romantic, he had an ironic manner about the feelings in question, and he used Catherine's Aunt Lavinia Penniman to caricature the romantic ideal. Because Rand was a romantic, she ended up by giving Catherine up as a person who had lost her soul. To a romantic, the idea that you could ever become cool about previous passion seems to imply a lobotomy, not any natural process of emotional growth.

The major flaw is not in Catherine -- either the Henry James or the Ayn Rand version -- but in her suitor, who is unable to withstand the pressure of a withheld approval form a Dr. Sloper or an Ellsworth Toohey. But since neither Catherine has any real vocation besides being a woman, neither of them despite all their social work and helping the poor, gets to have a real life outside of the romantic context.

In Henry James' novel, Catherine's overall lack of ambition and interest in anything besides the social sphere of her family life is very explicitly set out. This is not due to the oppression of the 19th century against women, nor because her particular father is a tyrant. She has access to books. Her father offers her a trip to Europe to improve her mind. But she is just an ordinary person, and the only thing that ever interested her was her relationship to other people. This is the background that most social people take for granted, and that remains true in their lives, even when women do routinely work outside the home. One ultimately has the feeling that Henry James must have suffered from a similar limitation, because he's writing about something that takes place in 1840, and he briefly mentions New Orleans as a place where one might catch yellow fever or trade in cotton, but what about the Republic of Texas? Wouldn't that be a nice place to go for a young man wanting to seek his fortune?

For Henry James, all that seems to exist in the world is the money grubbing United States and the old stateliness of Europe. That is the take of very well-socialized people.

"The most hopelessly evil story... in literature."

It seems odd to be reviewing a book released over 100 years ago, but I'm still astounded at the number of modern horror readers unfamiliar with the classics. Henry James is quite well known for his epic novels, but he was also a skilled master of the supernatural. His most famous story, "The Turn of the Screw," elicited strong reactions upon publication. The Independent did indeed call it the most evil story ever written up to that point.

The Gothic writers of the 1800s would not recognize the material we call horror today. James, like his contemporaries and predecessors, wrote what we now call dark fiction. These were eerie tales of shadows, secrets, lies, ghosts, phantasms, and tricks of the mind. In "The Turn of the Screw," James presents us with the very traditional ghost story narrative. A governess is hired to look after two young children in a wealthy English household. Two former employees, both of whom died under mysterious circumstances, appear to her throughout the story. She begins to realize they want to corrupt the souls of the two children.

The story is one of unparalleled atmosphere and suspense, but it also offers the reader very challenging questions. The growing anxieties in the narrative outwardly indicate the supernatural presence of ghosts. But these apparitions only ever appear to the governess. What does she actually see, if anything at all? This is a richly layered story where little is as it appears. Does James give us an ever-increasingly deranged woman? Or has the sinister pair really come back from the dead to claim the children? Do we have a heroine or a madwoman? The tale leaves us to ponder this immense question as the horrific events unfold to a tragic conclusion.

For Victorian England, the idea that evil would attempt to seduce children was a truly wicked notion. James stepped into very daring territory and created one of the most endearing ghost stories of the period. It is a reminder that in our violent, blood-soaked world we call horror today, there was once a premium placed not on killing and dismemberment, but on masterly narration, skilled use of tone and setting, and excellent character development to elicit fear, not shock or disgust. It is also a reminder that horror did not originate in the movies, but instead in the darkness of the human mind.

Now, Henry James knows how to write a ghost story. But is it a ghost story, really? You just can't tell for sure. Maybe the governess is seeing ghosts, and maybe she's just a little loose upstairs. That's what makes The Turn of the Screw such a great audiobook. You know you've achieved greatness when people are still talking about your book 112 years after you wrote it.

In the opening scene of the audiobook, we have several English gentlemen sitting around talking, when one of them begins to recount the tale of the governess and her two young charges. I like this method of storytelling, kind of a story within a story. It's very similar to the method H G Wells used in The Time Machine, and Stephen King adopted the style in some of his short stories as well.

Whether Henry James' ghosts are real, or only perceived, they still serve to build tension and suspense in the story. Each time they appear, the tension grows and you know something terrible is bound to happen. James does not disappoint; the ending will shock you.

This was my first experience with Simon Vance; although I've come across his name often enough to know he's a popular audiobook narrator. He only reads the parts with the gentlemen in the sitting room, however. Vanessa Benjamin reads the story of the governess. She did a fair enough job, although I'm not sure that I would actively seek out more audiobooks that feature her. Benjamin does read with some feeling, but at times her high-pitched British accent can get screechy.

Henry James wrote The Turn of the Screw in 1898, and it has remained a literary classic. This is one of those audiobooks that everyone needs to read at least once.

I love Henry James and this was one of his works not yet marred by the convoluted sentences of his later works.

A simple story of the father who is concerned that his daughter, a plain but kind girl set to inherit his enormous estate, is being pursued by the sly gold digger. Or is her father mistaken? His daughter certainly thinks he is but she is desperately in love with the handsome fortune hunter so can she really be objective?

Does the young man love her or her money? Is she going to marry him?

Excellent characterization and plot. I loved the way James can show a relationship between his character so that you forged they are not real.

Finally, Henry James is writing about the time that he witness with his own eyes so you can feel like you are being transported to the Golden Age...

I don't want to use this space to objectively discuss the literary merit of THE TURN OF THE SCREW, or talk about the interpretational history of same, or to address any number of similar matters that others are much better qualified to than I am. I simply want to take a moment to note that this is the work that (for the space of a novella anyway) made me actually like Henry James.

Before I read this book, I hated, hated, HATED Henry James. Everything I read of his seemed to concern despicable characters mulling over petty social protocols, laid down in labyrinthine prose that would try the patience of a saint. I had always meant to attempt more of his work, largely in light of the fact that there were so many people whose opinions I respected who loved the stuff, but I couldn't quite get up the will until the other day where I picked up an old copy of TURN OF THE SCREW that I had sitting by my computer desk and actually made a running start of it.

Suprise! I actually found to be an entertaining (albiet difficult) read. I had been previously unaware that James was capable of creating a plot where you actually, you know, want to find how out things turn out, but here it was. Additionally, those long, complex sentences actually seem to be here for a reason this time - in a tale like TURN OF THE SCREW where the keynote is ambiguity, it actually makes stylistic sense to make the reader wind his way through the inchoate thoughts of a frightened young woman. Finally, I'm a sucker for an unreliable narrator like we find here (although she is not, in my opinion, either insane or hallucinatory). In short, I still don't think James is ever gonna be my go-to guy if I want to luxuriate in beautiful prose, but I do find it reassuring that he found a story where he could put his idiosyncratic style to good use.

POSTSCRIPT: A (hopefully) brief kvetch - why is it that, when dealing with classic fiction, so many people seem to think it's okay to include spoilers? I bring this up in this particular review as I don't believe I've ever seen so many as I have with writing (here and elsewhere) on TURN OF THE SCREW. To clarify: letting anyone know the ending of a story without forewarning them is terribly presumptuos and inconsiderate, regardless of said story's perceived literary merit, standing, or ubiquity. If you indulge in this odious practice, please refrain from doing so in the future.

Some books you read for the first time and fall in love with. Some books you read for the first time and know that their message will stay with you for quite awhile. Some books you read for the first time knowing that you will have to read them again to fully understand and appreciate them.

Henry James' "The Turn of the Screw" is of the latter variety.

The tale is fairly well-known (thank goodness, or I would have really struggled to follow it). A young governess is hired by a wealthy, handsome man in London to care for his orphaned nephew and niece at his country estate. He will pay her well but wants to be completely hands-off with regards to the childrens' lives. The governess heads to the estate and quickly falls in love with the children - and just as quickly realizes that all is not as it seems.

The governess begins to see the ghosts of her predecessor, Miss Jessup, and a former employee, Peter Quint. She soon becomes convinced that the children see these apparitions as well but are hiding their knowledge from her. Are the ghosts out to inhabit the bodies of the innocent? Have they already done so? And what is this terrible secret that the young boy has to hide?

Henry James himself leaves much to the imagination. Perhaps the greatest thing about this tale is that he is so non-specific. You never know exactly what the ghosts did in their lives, just as you never know exactly what the children do and do not see. When tragedy strikes, you are also left wondering if it was the work of the supernatural or if the ghosts are in fact hallucinations and the governess is crazy. James is an incredibly complex writer, capturing the inner struggle and turmoil of his protagonist, writing just enough to make you wonder and then leaving you hanging for more.

But it's this complexity that can sometimes go over your head. In some ways, it's a case of missing the forest for the trees. While the plot is certainly intriguing, it almost takes a back-seat to James' prose, and it was only because I was familiar with the story that I was able to follow it at all. I know that this is a book I need to read again to fully appreciate, but upon first read, I was a bit perplexed.

One of the great things about reading a "classic" author is that it exposes you to their body of work. "The Turn of the Screw" is my first piece by Henry James and I am eager to read more. I'm also eager to read this one again, if only to understand it better.

"Mr. Henry James writes fiction as if it were a painful duty."

Oh look at that, Oscar Wilde has already written my review of this book. Splendid. I mean, that's it in a nutshell. Whatever criticisms I have of Washington Square seem to dance around that general sentiment.

Sometimes I feel like I read literature with half a mind toward the book's content and the other half toward the goal of discovering an author's particular ills--as if finding weakness in a great author is the true motive for reading great literature. There is no such thing as perfection, no? But that wasn't my motive. "Motive" implies premeditation, and if anything, I'd started this book with the plan to love it. Because I loved The Portrait of a Lady, and yes, James' incredibly accomplished, "dutiful" prose. But for reasons that would require too much of my own duty to get into, James' characteristic style weighed heavy on the feeble shoulders of this plain story.

I thought the characters were, not surprisingly, well imagined and acutely described. They were not the disappointment; for me, the plot was--a thin thing that perhaps even James got tired of harping on. So many conversations in the novel were about the same thing. And then of course, when one of the characters prides himself on being right 100% of the time, you know there can't be much change in the views expressed. Any mental and/or emotional movements in the story occur minimally and at a glacial pace. I listened to this in audio, and how tiring it became hearing these people talk in circles, never to agree or influence the opinion of another, only to float along with obedient patience. For readers who would primarily describe their own relationship to a parent or guardian as "impossible" or "like hitting your head against a brick walk," - you will especially tire of this book, as you get enough of it in real life. Count this as one period novel that can't be called "escapist."

And now another moment of honesty, though I may be sacrificed at the altar of Lit-Tra-Ture: I greatly preferred the movie adaptation. Not an exaggeration. At all. For one thing, Montgomery Clift. For another, Olivia de Havilland. And kudos to whoever freestyled with the screenplay, and then aptly renamed it "The Heiress." It's not like the movie has any great themes the novel didn't, but it actually makes use of them to create drama, excitement, and sweet, sweet retribution. The movie was so enjoyable, it makes me question whether James wrote the book to actually be of any amusement. Maybe simply demonstrating social tedium in Victorian society was the point. But then, people didn't have TVs in 1880; books were the entertainment. So what the hell was this stolid little parlor room "romance" supposed to be?

...but I give this 3 stars because I still can't be trusted to judge James with total impartiality. Really I'm inescapably enamored with the way he uses words. He's a wordsmith. A weaver of words...

"Doesn't she make a noise? Hasn't she made a scene?"
"She is not scenic."

Who the hell uses the word "scenic" to describe people and not landscapes? HENRY JAMES. Clearly some marvelous writing comes from painful duty.

This novella was one of the earliest psychological thrillers. It centers around a governess who believes that the two children she is teaching are being haunted by the ghosts of two former servants. It is never made wholly clear whether or not the ghosts really exist, or whether she is imagining it, and reading a sinister meaning into innocent actions of the children. It's of interest that Henry James brother, William James, was a member of the American Society for Psychical Research, and there was a lot of interest in the question of whether ghosts really existed or were hallucinations, at the time. Interestingly, the scenes where the ghosts appear have many similarities to accounts from the annals of the Society for Psychical Research.

So, do the ghosts exist or not? The story is often interpreted as about the governess's state of mind. It's assumed that she has a "repressed" attraction to her employer, and this manifests in morbid fantasies about the dead servants. Apart from the outdated cod psychology, there are a lot of reasons to suppose that this interpretation is wrong. First, the governess is perfectly aware of her feelings for her employer. She does not appear to be "neurotic" but strong-minded, although she maybe has too high an opinion of herself. She is not aware of the existence of the dead servants until after she sees the ghosts, and of course a person could not conjure up a fantasy of someone they've never seen, and then find that it corresponds exactly to that person's appearance, and the final chapter strongly indicates that the ghosts are real. However, the story is very well written and the suspense is maintained until the end.

... isn't always such a joy forever, after all." Henry James's short novel, Washington Square, is a thing of beauty, a nearly perfect 'historical' novel as shapely as a Grecian Urn, which has been the joy of English Department scholars, film makers, and more than a few readers ever since its publication in 1890. But James detested it and attempted to revise it for a later edition, only to conclude that the task was hopeless. To a certain degree, 'beauty' is its subject. The beautiful figures in the novel -- beautiful in any sense, physical or metaphysical -- turn out to be loathsomely selfish, moral failures -- while the least beautiful figure muddles and suffers through to a degree of decency and moral insight. Likewise, the fashionable heart of Manhattan in 1840, the beauty spot called Washington Square, is exposed as emblematic of a crass, greedy, egotistical society of climbers and grabbers.

Dr. Sloper, whose mansion on Washington Square is the setting for most chapters of the novel, is a popular and successful society doctor, made wealthy by his marriage to a New York belle and by his energetic practice. He's a man of intelligence and wit, with a penchant for irony and a well-concealed fund of narcissism. His beautiful wife dies young, leaving him a daughter who is neither beautiful nor intelligent. Catherine, the daughter, is pudgy, dull, and docile. Despite being the heiress of a considerable fortune, she reaches her early twenties without attracting a suitor. Then a handsome, clever, stylish stranger, Morris Townsend, comes courting with suspicious alacrity. The Doctor's widowed sister, a resident in the Washington square mansion, fancies herself a romantic and a matchmaker. The Doctor is offended at the prospect that his daughter, awkward embarrassment that she is to his self-esteem, should fall prey to a mercenary wastrel who would thereby carry off the fruits of his professional labors. He forcefully denounces the courtship and threatens 'disinheritance.'

And that's the polished formula for a Victorian novel of manners-and-marriage, isn't it? A novel in the style of Jane Austen or the Brontes, told by an omniscient third-person narrator who often speaks out of the frame directly to the reader! An 'old-fashioned' novel, in short, for Henry james to have written in 1890, especially when everyone knew that he despised the works of Austen! But Henry James was a perverse critter in his literary motives. Washington Square is also a 'historical' novel, set in New York in the 1840s, the very decade of the greatest popularity of Austen-like novels of romance. It's worth noting that James was born in New York City in 1843, making this novel effectively a portrayal of the society of his parents' generation. Nostalgia? Ha! You'll need to read it and look hard for any trace of that!

So it's my thesis - my guess - that James intended Washington Square as a moral rebuttal to the sloppy frippery and psychological unreality of his feminine novelist predecessors. I seldom read literary criticism; I got too much of that in college. If any critic has already stated this same thesis, I'm unaware of it and I can't be accused of plagiarism. But James was wrong to scorn his own brilliance in this novel. The four principal characters -- father, daughter, suitor, meddlesome aunt -- are staggeringly "real" and fully realized psychological portrayals. No one has ever made better reading out of four such unattractive faulty human beings.

The Turn of the Screw is a rather famous and critically renowned novella in American literary history. I wasn't entirely sure what to expect when I started into the story. I specifically avoided the wealth of critical theory and interpretations out there. After finishing, I'm very curious to see the many possible discussions that have been spurred by this book.

The narrative style is simple and easily accessible. For modern readers, it may present itself a little daunting at first because of the high/antiquated language of the 19th century. But truly, it's not a difficult read. The language is very lovely. The descriptions are vibrant and intriguing. And the story is interesting.

The way the plot is laid out was somewhat interesting to me. It starts with a group of characters sitting around telling stories and one of them decides to read this account from a journal he's discovered/received. The rest of the story is then this journal.

That presentation in itself isn't terribly odd. What was intriguing to me was that the framing was simple and subtle but the overall purpose is ambiguous. We're told that the original storyteller (the man who has the journal) has a connection to the governess. The exact nature of his connection is left ambiguous to the extent that I sometimes wondered if he (the man) was a grown version of one of the children in the story (assuming a different name). Once I decided that wasn't the case, I was interested to see if he would have some sort of epilogue for what happened AFTER the final words of the journal. If he was close enough to the governess to now have her story, then it's somewhat strange that we have this exclusion of his own interpretation or of commentary after the fact.

The story of the governess and the children is interesting...eerie...somewhat chilling at times. It's not a shocking tale of horror and fear. But James does a great job of portraying the horror of emotion that the governess feels and that makes its way into the life around her. The interactions with the ghosts and the nature of the behavior of the children were strange and distanced. It was difficult for me to decide what was real and what was imagined. Many times I thought the governess was going insane. Other times I was certain she was on the right track. In many instances it felt like her leaps of logic were a little too far fetched and that she made too many wild assumptions. But it was interesting to see how things played out with her and with her interactions with her single confidant Mrs. Grose.

The ending left me stunned and with a whole set of new questions to think on. I enjoyed the story. It is definitely engaging. I really wanted more of a wrap up...more closure...more something after the current ending. Still, leaving this abrupt, shocking ending is certainly more powerful and long-lasting than if the author had stepped back and wrapped everything up in a nice neat bow.

Overall, this was a good story and I look forward to reading more by Henry James when I get the chance.

****
4 out of 5 stars

Here we are in New York City in the mid-1880's, a bit before Edith Wharton's time, but in the same social milieu. This is a kind of novel of manners, a mid-19th Century soap opera. Our author is Henry James, so be prepared for the long, convoluted, comma- and semicomma-laden sentences akin to those of Jane Austen.

Yet a fascinating book. Catherine, more or less our heroine, is plain, stolid, timid, obedient and, quite frankly, a bit on the dull side. She lives in her father's house. With her mother deceased, a widowed aunt is her caretaker and companion. Catherine is in her late 20's when a suitor finally appears (a late age for that era). Her suitor would be quite a catch for a gal like Catherine, so her father, a wealthy physician, immediately recognizes (and so do we) that he's after her inheritance. Her father forbids the marriage and in that process we learn that he is vindictive, petty, tyrannical, bullying - and wait --- there's something even worse: he doesn't really even LIKE his daughter.

The novel fast-forwards in the final chapters so we get to see how it all works out decades in the future. It's great writing --- it's Henry James after all. A good book for those who have a taste for the oblique references and flowery style of writing from that era.

The Turn of the Screw is one of those books that I didn't enjoy while I was reading it, but I appreciated it much more after I finished it and considered what it was all really about. If you read the book as merely a turn-of-the-century ghost story then it isn't very remarkable; the ghosts aren't scary and the story moves unbelievable slowly. But if you realize that Henry James intended the story to be ambiguous and to function both as a ghost story and as a portrayal of a young woman's descent into madness caused in part by the sexual frustration of being in her position in an extremely repressive society then it's fascinating. Suddenly there are dual meanings everywhere. There are many instances of affection between the governess and Miles and of references to Miles' misdeeds at school that can be interpreted either as purely innocent or as overtly sexual in nature, and either way that you read them, they work. Scholars have been debating for over a hundred years about what James' intentions really were, whether the ghosts are real, what Miles' crime at school was, what caused the the event at the end of the story (the last line in the book) and whether James intended to evoke sexual innuendoes. I thought his writing style was agonizingly long-winded, but long after finished the book I found myself pondering the same questions.

A story that takes place in the late 1700s, but written in the early part of the 1800s.

This novel was written as a gothic (romance/horror) novel, which mixes science, philosophy and religion. It was written with the subtitle of "The Modern Prometheus", in which Prometheus was a Titan from Greek mythology, in which Prometheus created fire and gave fire to man, and Zeus punished him afterwards.

Forwarding to the story, Frankenstein is a doctor who decides to create his own being, by looking for random body parts and attaching it to a body. However, it backfires when the being he creates comes to life, and is not as attractive as he thought it was going to turn out. The doctor shuns his creation, and abandons him.

The Monster then wises up, stops trying to please his master and plans his revenge, from trying to convince the doctor to create him a mate, to stalking Frankenstein's family and friends.

It tells the dangers of "playing God", the cruelty that humans are capable of, and how loss can be dealt with.

It cautions that "Playing God" can open up so many cans of worms such as genetic engineering, cloning and and that one must think
ahead very carefully and know that there are consequences of playing God.

Its also very sad and tragic, and it makes you feel!

Henry James has the reputation for writing superb novellas. The reputation is deserved. I was just knocked out by these six short works. They span a wide range of emotions and attitudes and I found them all engrossing. I thoroughly enjoyed "An International Episode," a clever comedy of manners involving a subtle flirtation between a bright young woman from Boston and a young member of the British peerage that constantly surprised and delighted me. I had seen the film version of "Daisy Miller" decades ago, so I knew the story, but the carefully observed culture clash between the shockingly egalitarian Miss Miller (and her family) and snooty old Europe is both funny and unsettling. My favorite of these stories was "The Aspern Papers" in which a young American intellectual tries to manipulate a reclusive and diffident old woman into giving him the papers of the late poet John Aspern, who had been her lover in her youth. About halfway through the story the reader starts to wonder who is manipulating whom. To top it off, the old woman's spinster niece, who serves as her companion, may be doing some manipulation of her own. I love the scenes in whidh the characters try to guess what the other characters are thinking. (This is a trademark Jamesian device that he utilizes in all the other stories to some degree.) "The Altar of the Dead" was the basis of the Truffaut film, "The Green Room," but was quite different. Like "The Beast in the Jungle," it tells of a relationship between a man and a woman that takes place virtually entirely below the surface and is mostly unacknowleged. "The Turn of the Screw" was somewhat familiar to me because it was the basis for the Deborah Kerr movie, THE INNOCENTS. I wish I had not been familiar with the film because I do think it filled in a lot of gaps that are not necessarily there in James's original. However, it remains a disturbing ghost story about a young governess who may or may not be psychotic. This was a great reading experience. Five stars.

Throughout my years as an English major I never read Henry James, but a few months back I found this 1996 hardcover edition of WASHINGTON SQUARE, with 8 pages of vintage photographs of the environs around that most interesting piece of real estate nestled in Greenwich Village. I have hope of seeing THE HEIRESS this fall in New York when Jessica Chastain plays Catherine Sloper, the romantic, homely daughter of Dr. Sloper. WASHINGTON SQUARE, written in 1881, is the familiar story of a daughter, the titular heiress, who falls for a rogue whom the reader is led to believe is more interested in her inheritance than her. While reading the story I was surprised at how this not-all-too-surprising story was made fresh (or was this the original fresh version?) by the incredible prose of James and the vividness of New York City in the 19th century, when the cities' gentry continued to move north from the battery. The story truly begins when the doctor moves his daughter and widowed sister Lavania to the now-fashionable Washington Square, where, at her other aunt's party, she meets the dashing Morris Townsend, who, with the complicity of the widowed aunt, pays a call on Catherine in their opulent parlor. The story expounds from there, with twists and turns of thought, manners and character. WASHINGTON SQUARE is a rewarding addition the canon of 19th century New York City literature.

Though James rejected this tale for inclusion in the New York Edition of his works, presumably because it was too simple and straightforward, many readers have not shared his judgment, insisting instead the work has great merit.
Its theme is an intriguing one that raises the following question: Is it better to be clever or good? Even here, for James, the answer is not all that simple, his conclusion being it's probably best to be some subtle combination of both.
Dr. Sloper and Morris Townsend, the central male figures, are clever men, but each is deficient in his own way. The caustically witty Doctor wants to be just, but his pride in being right about Morris as a fortune hunter ultimately overrides his fatherly concerns. For this reason, he becomes a sort of Hawthorne-like villain, a scientific, detached, almost gleeful observer of his own daughter's plight, rather than a suitably caring parent. He suffers, finally, not from an excess of cleverness, but from a defect of generous felt emotion. Morris, too, is a definitely clever character, but at the same time he's the spoiled creation of enabling women, a boy-man who's more a self-interested player at life than a vital participant in it, an early version of the fatherless "It's all about me" youth of later modern fiction.
The heroine Catherine is a sorely beset young woman, pulled this way and that, now by her right-at-all-costs father, then by her fortune hunting suitor. She is a good, dutiful daughter throughout, though the novel details her growth in intelligent personhood. She finally gains the independence needed to tell her manipulative father where his parental rights end and her own moral self begins. Similarly, once her education in life is complete, she is able to avoid a final romantic capitulation, telling the shameless Morris in the novel's last scene what her mature self now requires he hear from her. Naturally, he's too self-involved to accurately understand her real character.
This short novel, finally, is rich in witty literary parody. It's closing chapters read like an inverted "Odyssey," with the patiently waiting Catherine weaving embroidery in Penelope-like fashion, until the surprise return of the long wandering Morris. All in all, despite the masterly author's doubts, this is a work of considerable distinction.

Henry James's 1880 novelette "Washington Square" is a small masterpiece. It involves only a handful of people in a simple plot set in 1880's New York City, yet it is an engrossing story whose austere style invites the reader's attention. At issue is the fate of Catherine, the unremarkable daughter of a prominent and wealthy doctor. She will be courted by Mr. Morris Townshend, a charming and persuasive gentlemen, with the active assistance of Catherine's Aunt Pennington. Catherine will find herself trapped between her desire for Morris and her respect for her father's wishes. How she works out her dilemna is the crux of the novel. To say more is to give away the suspense at the heart of the narrative. Highly recommended to fans of the author.

If you are a fan of the Haunted House story then Henry James' "The Turn of the Screw" is a mandatory addition to any reading list along with "The Haunting of Hill House", "Hell House" and "The Shining" (although "The Turn of the Screw" is considered the finest ghost story ever written - if that floats you boat).

The story, about a young governess who is hired to raise two children in isolation at an English estate, contains some gothic elements with ghostly apparitions but is overall very understated in its horrific elements by modern standards. Written in the 1800's there are no real overtly frightening moments and the "haunted" theme is used as a vehicle to convey other real world horrors in a very ambiguous way.

The books strength, and weakness for the modern horror reader, is its structure and ambiguity. James writes a story that creates uncertainty regarding the governess's sanity (the story is the governess's interpretation of events as conveyed through her written recap) and presents many situations that remain unexplained at the story's conclusion. It is the constant questioning of events and truthfulness in the descriptions that makes the story interesting and utterly frustrating at the same time. The reader is never sure if the ghosts are real or just "fantasies" created in the mind of a manipulative governess. Furthermore, the reader is never really sure what exactly happened in the past at the house and to the children. There are hints of sexual impropriety which is where the real horror comes from, but again the reader needs to draw their own conclusions and nothing is ever revealed as absolute. I am sure (if I interpreted some of the book correctly) the subject matter was too taboo to talk about clearly during the time "The Turn of the Screw" was published.

I am glad I read "The Turn of the Screw" for its literary merits and place in haunted house fiction history. The ambiguity was somewhat refreshing in that the reader can interpret the information many ways. However, I also found it difficult to immerse myself in the Victorian period and follow the narrative in a way that would allow me to absorb the richness of James masterpiece.

Turn of the Screw is an exercise in suspense. The entire novella centers around turning the screw, or ratcheting up the tension, over the simple matter of whether or not a governess and her two dependents, Miles and Flora, will survive the eerie predation of a duo of ghosts haunting the Bly Estate. The book is artfully crafted and entertaining, and it's worth reading for the quality of Henry James' lavish Victorian prose, but it doesn't stand out in character, plot, or theme.

The focus of this entire novel is money. But James manages to craft a tale that explores not only wealth, how it is used and what it means, but social class, family structure, filial obedience, parental responsibility, and strength of character. Catherine may be described by everyone as "sweet, but simple," but she has a will of steel, and will show her father that he has grossly underestimated her.

Honestly, I don't know why I waited so long to read a Henry James novel. For some reason I thought he would be "difficult," with long, complicated sentence structure and archaic language. If you have the same notion, get over it. This is a very approachable story. I was engaged and interested from the beginning. Of course, now I've added more Henry James to my tbr mountain ... but I think that's a good thing.

Nominally a story of young romance, Washington Square's plot actually pivots around two sharply defined characters: the young Catherine Sloper, honest and sweet, but embarrassingly average and plain, and her father, Dr. Austin Sloper, articulate and brilliant, but disturbingly cold-hearted and domineering. Henry James professed little liking for his early novel; through the years most readers have ignored his opinion.

The writings of Henry James, especially his later novels, are notable (some might say, infamous) for using lengthy, digressive sentence structures for exploring complex emotional and psychological motivations. Slow paced plots play a subordinate role to nuanced, subtle, ambiguous characterizations. Contrastingly, Washington Square's popularity most likely stems from its straight-forward plot, some suspense, and sharply defined characters.

Catherine was an only child; her mother and baby brother died of complications during childbirth. Years later Dr. Sloper is still grieved and angered by the loss of his beautiful, vivacious, and witty wife. Despite Catherine's love and admiration for him, Dr. Sloper remains distant and cold, viewing Catherine's social ineptness as an ironic parody of his deceased wife.

When the young, handsome, articulate Morris Townsend shows interest in Catherine, Dr. Sloper immediately concludes that his only interest is her wealth, and moves quickly to break them apart. Matters are complicated by Catherine's silly, meddlesome, and manipulative aunt (Mrs. Penniman, the widowed sister of Dr. Sloper) who functions as an uninvited go-between for the two young lovers. Dr. Sloper remains quite confident in his own judgment, but in the early stages of their romance we readers remain uncertain of Townsend's motivation.

My fascination with Washington Square centered not on whether Townsend was genuinely in love with Catherine, but with the way in which Catherine revealed her inner strength in managing her increasingly strained relationship with her insensitive father and in how she ultimately comes to terms with the duplicity of her lover. Washington Square may not have achieved the full psychological subtlety and complexity desired by Henry James, but it is far from a simple, superficial tale of bitter sweet romance.

Washington Square on film: I highly recommend Washington Square, a 1997 production that features Jennifer Jason Leigh as Catherine, Albert Finney as Dr. Sloper, Ben Chaplin as Morris Townsend, and Maggie Smith as Catherine's aunt. This casting is superb, with all four characterizations faithful to the novel.

There are a few unnecessary scenes, however, that portray Catherine as overly clumsy and inept. Also, Morris Townsend on occasion is unrealistically effusive in his praise and admiration. A little more of Henry James's subtlety and nuance would have been better. Washington Square was directed by Agnieszka Holland.

Washington Square in print: This novella is widely available in various anthologies, or published alone, in inexpensive paperbacks from Signet Classics, Penguin Classics, and others. I particularly like a Simon and Schuster, hard cover edition (ISBN 0-684-81911-2) with 16 pages of high quality, black and white historical photographs, many belonging to the Museum of the City of New York historical collection.

So unlike the usual "young love" novel of this author, the drama of this novel centers upon mind games involving apparitions - with the reader never knowing in full detail if the governess to whom the ghosts communicate exist or are merely figments of her deteriorating mind.

Basically a text of solitude's ability to fertilize fantasy, the reader experiences the growing paranoia of the governess as she attempts to understand who the haunting figures are, and for what reasons they keep coming to her. Drip by drip, step by step, the novel unfolds slowly to describe how she further becomes belabored by the experiences of intrusion created by fanciful appearances by allegedly former employees of the lord's home - who each left for reasons of totally unknown disrepute.

In the middle of this sequence are two adorable orphaned children whose care is now to be handled at their rich uncle's castle, all of which is handled the old fashioned British way: send them off to someplace where the master does not have to see them, but deliver and afford them the luxuries which only the privileged few could enjoy (e.g. maids, private tutors and more).

These elementary school children are not allowed to attend the normal school - and the governess has the duty to educate these children who are exiled from the proper school. She wonders why they are outcasts to the school, and deduces that their relationship with the previous governess and other aid - each who was the source of scandal and bad gossip - propagated the children's demise. But, she learns that more than her initial inclination may be the cause for the principal's order which prohibits their attendance at school.

Ultimately, the book ends with the twist and turn that is both despicable and expected. The mind's collapse under the extraordinary conditions at the manor have fully enveloped the psyche of the main character and the victim of her mental breakdown is the most ill suited.

Without love between young people and their everlasting joy, this book reads more like Poe than James. I was truly surprised by the topic and writing of this novel.

Washington Square is a compact, tightly constructed story that focuses with almost unwavering gaze upon the Sloper family, or more particularly, on Catherine Sloper, a sweet, ordinary, rather dull young lady who falls in love with a man her father is convinced loves her purely for the inheritance she stands to gain upon his death. This early novel of Henry James' alternates between biting, witty exchanges amongst the characters and introspective, sensitive exploration of the feelings and thoughts of Catherine and her father. The narrator - never named, though at times he is quite chatty towards the reader - chooses not to take sides, instead displaying the different facets of each character as they are, leaving questions of personality and intent up to the reader.

It is usual in a novel involving a young lady and a potentially disastrous suitor that the female in question be beautiful, intelligent, resourceful, kind - even if she doesn't know it. These stories tend to follow her development from innocent to experienced, which is one of the many reasons why Washington Square plays out so differently. Catherine is, we are told, 'not ugly; she had simply a plain, dull, gentle countenance. The most that had ever been said for her was that she had a "nice" face'. Later, her father compares Catherine's intelligence to that of a bundle of shawls. He often laments Catherine's lack of qualities, and so does Catherine, and so does everyone else. She is a submissive, almost subservient in her attitudes, willing to submerge her ideas - if she has any - and bend with the will of her father. Enter love, however, and slowly a change begins to take place.

Morris Townsend is the man Catherine falls for. She had never experienced the interest of a male before, indeed, her life seems to have been somewhat sheltered. When Morris enters her life Catherine's father, Dr Sloper, who never had much hope for his daughter, becomes determined to prevent them from marrying. Sloper is the type of father who wishes a specific future for his child, so they will 'be happy', and yet when their happiness chooses a different direction, they become stubborn, obstinate, and, in this case, quite hurtful and damaging.

Neither Morris nor Dr Sloper are particularly admirable characters. Granted, both are intelligent and even charming, with the novel's most enjoyable moments coming from the interaction between the two. They snipe at one another during their very clever exchanges where epigrams fly and bon mots are thrown about with abandon. However, Morris is shown - rather bluntly - to be interested in Catherine's money and not herself, which he finds tiresome, and Dr Sloper is concerned with breaking the tiny backbone that has emerged from he knows not where within Catherine's heart.

Do we love Catherine? Is that the intent of this novel? The answer is - no. Catherine truly is plain, in the sense that there isn't much to her. She is confused by the larger forces in her life which seem to determine the direction of her future without any real input from herself. She believes that both Morris and her father have her best interests at heart, even when it is clear to the reader they do not. Whenever poor Catherine dares to speak her mind, Morris or her father are ready and willing to stamp it down. Her father can be quite manipulative. After asking Catherine to give Morris away, he says, 'Have you no faith in my wisdom, in my tenderness, in my solicitude for your future?', and later, when she stands by her man, he asks, 'You make nothing of my judgment, then?' Poor Catherine is left to wonder what to think, when all she knows is she loves her father and wants to marry Morris.

During the course of the novel, Catherine develops attitudes which distinctly reject her father's plans, but she also, to the surprise of Morris, refuses to go along with everything he says, either. There is a clear impression throughout the work that, should she choose Morris, she will be exchanging one master for another - the names may change, but the overall life of Catherine will not.

Henry James is known for his dense - some call it impenetrable - prose, and for his fondness for deeply exploring the inner workings of his characters. Washington Square is slightly different to his others works in this regard, perhaps because it is an earlier novel. The prose can be quite circumlocutory, with multiple clauses embedded within a single sentence, long rambling comma filled descriptions and niceties of expression that seem to exist purely to avoid stating the blunt truth of the matter. But it is these techniques which serve also to highlight the confusing world around Catherine, and the difficulty she finds in untangling the intention of the two very strong men who wish to control her life. James, at his best, is a phenomenal writer, and happily for the reader of Washington Square he is completely in charge of the material. The narrator is confident in expressing the feelings and thoughts of the major and minor characters, using tact, grace, eloquence and insight to create his little portraits.

Whether or not Catherine will marry Morris and defy her novel, though an important part of the novel, is not the primary thrust of James' work. It seems clear from the outset the direction the story will take, and this initial belief becomes true. Where the strengths of the story lie is in the growing independence of Catherine, her understanding of herself as a person capable of expressing intent and determining the direction of her life by herself. Catherine is an innocent in a world which is, invariably, destructive towards such people. She learns this the hard way, but there is something undeniably 'Catherine' that remains, even to the bitter end. Washington Square, while not a masterpiece on the level of The Portrait of a Lady, nevertheless explores its theme well, and does so with an assured hand. Catherine's life, though somber and small by today's standards, does evoke sympathy within the reader. The final line is very sad, because it was inevitable, and because, deep down, the reader knows that it is the best life Catherine could have had.

A reader new to The Turn of Screw should read no reviews, no essays, no forwards, and no prefaces. I made that mistake. Without going into details, my first reading of The Turn of the Screw was unduly influenced by my knowing too much too soon.

My review pertains to A Casebook on Henry James's The Turn of the Screw, second edition, edited by Gerald Willen. (Another good source of interpretive essays is found in the Norton Critical Edition.) The Turn of the Screw makes up the first 94 pages; the twenty essays in the Casebook total some 300 pages and are arranged chronologically. It is best to read them in sequence as later critics often refer to earlier ones, in some cases directly challenging an earlier position.

The primary interpretation is straight-forward. The Turn of the Screw is just what it seems to be: a well-constructed, frightening, bona fide ghost story. There is much evidence for this argument including various notes and letters written by Henry James himself. Most readers subscribe to this view - at least on their first reading.

A second interpretation challenges the veracity of the story teller, the children's governess, arguing that the ghosts are bizarre imaginings, hallucinations, of a mentally disturbed young woman. While early criticism was founded on newly popular Freudian analysis, later supporters of this interpretation focused largely on inconsistencies in her account. Critics also point to supporting evidence in Henry James's sometimes ambiguous notes and letters.

The inherent contradiction in these two interpretations leads many readers to return again and again to this deeply complex, subtlely nuanced, deliberately ambiguous, simple ghost story. It is no surprise that The Turn of the Screw remains one the most read and most enjoyed works by Henry James.

Recommendation: If your time is limited, I suggest that you read, or at least browse, the following selections: Henry James's Preface to The Aspern Papers (1908), The Ambiguity of Henry James (1934) by Edmund Wilson (including his 1948 and 1959 revisions), Mr. Edmund Wilson and The Turn of the Screw (1947) by A. J. A. Waldock, James's Air of Evil: The Turn of the Screw (1949) by Oliver Evans, Henry James as Freudian Pioneer by Oscar Cargill, and One More Turn of the Screw (1957) by Louis D. Rubin, Jr.

THE TURN OF THE SCREW is probably the most widely-analyzed piece of literature to come out of the 1890s (and certainly the most widely-analyzed of Victorian-era horror fictions). Its plot concerns nothing spectacularly unique, as far as ghost stories go; and yet this, James' most consummate novel, is one of the most ingeniously constructed ghost stories in the English language. THE TURN OF THE SCREW's greatest strength lies in its exploration of the complex web of doubts that linger in the back of its central character's brain, which mirror in many ways the reservations that occur in the mind of a READER of ghost stories. This curious inversion of the relationship between reader and writer sets the stage for a matryoshka doll of a story that falls into itself, layer upon layer, numerous times throughout its scant hundred pages of text.

THE TURN OF THE SCREW is almost a condensation of every motif present in the archetypal English ghost story, though its scope is more American in its convolutions. Henry James, who penned several other ghostly tales alongside his more mainstream fiction, succeeds here so supremely because of his near-obsession with the ambiguity of ambiguities. Wilde called it `a most wonderful, lurid, poisonous little tale,' and that is a fitting assessment: THE TURN OF THE SCREW envelops us in a fog of doubt and suspicion, placing us in its narrator's head and forcing us to see mysterious events through HER eyes: there is no third-person narration here to challenge our inevitable disbelief; instead we must rely on the facts as presented by a narrator who is, quite possibly, delusional...but then, IS she?

The plot concerns the isolation of a governess at a sprawling country estate where she is left in charge of two children who seem to have fallen under the influence of a menace that may or may not be supernatural. As the story evolves, however, we are forced to question how much of what our narrator is telling us is accurate; THE TURN OF THE SCREW predates, and yet also exemplifies, the idea of the `unreliable narrator' which was to have such an influence on the Moderns. Its subject matter lends itself, however, to this device and it remains one of the most successful examples of the technique.

THE TURN OF THE SCREW is quite possibly the death rattle of literary Gothicism--the final `key work' in a century-long movement--and so it is quite fitting that it so encapsulates the entire tradition of the Gothic. There would be later luminaries--Lovecraft, Blackwood, Du Maurier, and others--as the 20th Century began to find its darker voice, but THE TURN OF THE SCREW remains the curtain call of Gothicism proper: it is the beginning of the psychological horror story and the end of the `haunted castle,' `perambulating skeleton,' `woman-in-peril' school. It still fascinates, simply because so much can be read into it. If we grant that its conclusions remain open-ended, we must also grant, however, that a great deal of its import is right there in black-and-white: THE TURN OF THE SCREW elucidates as much as it obscures and paves the way for the kind of cerebral terror that would become the hallmark of the next era of literary gloom: the Weird Tale.

Like all fictions that occupy a place of transition, THE TURN OF THE SCREW is a very difficult piece to pin down or define, and given its subject matter, this ambiguity seems entirely relevant to any assessment of its impact. James may not be the foremost writer of Victorian-era Gothic, but his opus is without question one of the best examples of the movement: it is crisper than Stoker and more chilling than Le Fanu or Stevenson, more allied with Poe and hence more American in its focus: James may have been an Anglophile of the strictest sort, but his darkest work, THE TURN OF THE SCREW, entirely exemplifies the principles of the American Gothic and remains, with the stories of Poe, the strongest work in its canon.

Turn of the Screw was my intro into the works of Henry James. The intro for the story is excellent and gives the reader insight into how the story has been interpreted from many points of view. Many are divided as to decide if the governess is the heroine or the villain, or whether the ghosts she sees are part of her imagination or real. Being a novice of literature, would this book prompt me to read other works of Henry James? Given James penchant for keeping the reader interested through suspense,his excellent writing style, and brevity, I think so.

This Dell paperback performs a nice bit of service by giving you a pair of Henry James' most significant works: "The Turn Of The Screw," the famous ghost-story novella for which he is best-known today; and "Daisy Miller," another novella that was James' most successful in his lifetime.

I only wish I had enjoyed them. James' style, as I found it, tends to be rather opaque, high-toned, and enervated; smothered in adjectives and lacking in verbs. Fiction-writing from his period can be distant and formal-sounding, but James' feels lost to time in a way others like Conrad and Twain are not.

I probably had the wrong mindset approaching "Turn Of The Screw." This is a famous horror story, read by middle-schoolers. How much of a chore would it be?

Plenty. James frames his story by introducing us to a group of high-toned characters, none of whom we will see again as one of them tells about a story "beyond everything. Nothing I know touches it...for dreadfulness!"

I found this to be true, actually, though not the way James intended. After these few pages of meandering exposition, we meet an unnamed woman hired to be a governess of two cute little kids residing in a pretty English country manor. Various things start to happen to convince the woman that the children are communing with a pair of nasty specters.

Nice idea, but James presents it, intentionally or otherwise, so vaguely that the story loses any real foreboding or suspense. When ghosts appear, they stand on parapets or stare through windows, eyes haunting but the rest of them pretty much inert. Not even the shake of a chain. You never really know anyone in the story; not the kids, cardboard cuties who seem to drift though the narrative chirping noxious Edwardian pleasantries; and not the governess, who sticks by her creepy assignment because she has fallen in love with their uncle, a rich weirdo who requires no matter what happens to the tykes, he never be bothered about them. I guess a good man was hard to find back then.

The end of the book loses a lot of people, but in such a way to make it a favorite of critics. Did the story really happen as presented, or did the governess flip? It's easier to go on about subtext this way when there's so little to the actual text.

"Daisy Miller" is a better tale, crisper and more involving. It's about social mores, and how a young American woman in Europe falls afoul of them. Actually, I thought the story was about a young man who meets an enchanting but impossible flirt, and the way it distends his view of himself and the world around him. But it turns out I was wrong, according to the literary criticism I found online. It's about the girl, and she's not a minx the way I thought, but a truehearted innocent who suffers from the snobby Continentals.

Man, I'm really glad they didn't stick me with this in middle school. "Daisy Miller" left me confused again, and flat, but I did enjoy it until I discovered I was reading a whole different story from what the author wrote. Darn you James, you narrative trickster you!

Henry James (1843-1916) is an acquired literary taste! James novels became increasingly esoteric as the master grew older. His style is densely colored with his observing eye as his long sentences are used to plumb into the depths of the human heart and mind. James demands your total concentration. In an electronic age this is hard to acquire but this author does warrant careful reading.
The Aspern Papers of 1888 was inspired by a story heard by James. A woman who had been loved by Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley was reported to be lving in James' own day. James took this nugget and polished it into a gem of a tale.
The narrator wheedles his way into a home in Venice owned by the aged lover of the fictionally famous author Jefrey Aspern. The narrator seeks to obtain the love letters so they might be published. He will then be the reaper of the rewards of such a literay sensation! However, the old lady refuses to give up the yellowing pages. She dies but not before her niece Miss Tina falls in love with the narrator. She gives him a choice: marry her though she is late middle age or lose the opportunity to possess the papers. How will the narrator choose?
The Turn of the Screw is the most famous ghost story in the English language. It has been turned into an opera and been seen in many film and television version.
The plot concerns a young woman who is hired to tutor young children Miles and Flora whose father remains out of the picture. He resides in London while the governess and children live on his vast estate in the countryside. She and the children see the ghosts of dead servants Peter Quince and the former governess Miss Jessel. The terror is palpable in the scary home. The novelette ends in a suspensful and surprising way. The story is open to psychological interpretations which have kept critics guessing for years as to the story's meaning. Is the tale a dream of the governess? Is it an honest report of ghosts? Is it a veiled descrption of puberty and budding sexuality? Read the novella making up your own mind.
Henry James was a master of the short story and novella. These two offerings in the Penguin edition are well worthy of your time, attention and money.

Very accessible, short novel of manners set in mid-nineteenth century Manhattan, New York.
Quiet Catherine Sloper is an Heiress. She is not beautiful, intelligent or charming. She is gentle, honest and steadfast.
Her widowed father is a respected Society Physician, who had wisely married a rich woman. We are told that he married for love, a very charming girl with "a solid dowry". We assume it was the charming girl that he loved and not the sizeable dowry. The narrator tells us that Dr Sloper is a clever man.
Having lost his firstborn son, he is truly disappointed in dull, shy Catherine but consoles himself with the idea that her nature is docile, obedient and unromantic.
Catherine loves and admires her father and desires to please him. She is unaware of his negative opinion of her.
***Spoilers***
Catherine attends her paternal Cousin Marian's betrothal party. She is introduced to handsome Morris Townsend, an impecunious cousin of the betrothed young man. Morris has been unfortunate at a number of careers.
Morris finds Catherine very attractive and begins to court her, to her great delight. He is abetted by Catherine's romantic Aunt Penniman. Catherine is in love. Morris hopes to marry Catherine.
We soon find out what Dr Sloper thinks of this courtship. He forbids it.
Dr Sloper knows that Morris wants to marry the fortune. Catherine is no more than the package that contains the fortune. This becomes a contest between Dr Sloper and Morris. The prize being the ultimate possession of the fortune. Both men value the fortune, not the woman.
Dr Sloper believes that if he removes the fortune, Morris will lose interest in the package. He takes Catherine on a tour of Europe, expecting to bend her to his will. He is unsuccessful in that but succeeds in finally revealing his contempt for his daughter. Catherine sees that contempt and is devastated.
Dr Sloper is angered by Catherine's continued fidelity. Meanwhile, Morris has decided that a disinherited Catherine is not to his taste. With the help of meddling Aunt Penniman, he breaks their engagement.
Years pass, Catherine is content to live in her own home, with her own routine, with her own fortune. The common Catherine has become uncommon. What decision will she make when a repentent Morris re-enters her life?
This a story of innocence, betrayal, greed and hubris. Catherine, the despised, finally comes into her own.
Recommended.

The Turn of the Screw

Review by A. Willis

Henry James's The Turn of the Screw is a novella written and set in the Victorian period of England. It describes the experience of a country girl who gets a job as a governess of a rich man's estate. She is to look after the children and to never contact their uncle, the rich man. She grows to love the estate, Bly, as well as the seemingly angelic children. However, soon after, she begins seeing things that should not be there...The Turn of the Screw is an engaging story of mystery, suspense, and the supernatural. James utilizes complex and sometimes ponderous sentence structures. Though in other contexts this would take away from the effect of the story, James was correct in using this writing style. The story is narrated (for the most part) in first person - we are reading an account that she supposedly wrote after her experiences. The sentence structure adds to the authenticity of the story, and the sometimes-rambling tangents are reminiscent of an increasingly crazed train of though - stress brought on by the supernatural encounters. If James had written the story with an objective, omniscient narrator, many of the interesting passages and insights into the governess's mind would be lost, and it would have been a much drier read. I would also like to note that the writing style is also reminiscent of Victorian England - the fact that he wrote the story during the time period in which it took place adds to the realistic atmosphere.

Another very interesting aspect of The Turn of the Screw is the many ways it can be (and has been) read and interpreted. I don't want to give anything away, but suffice to say there is some doubt as to the credibility of the governess as a completely truthful narrator, and much of the book's mystery comes from "in between the lines". Many critics have debated over the meaning of the story - whether it is simply a ghost story, or possibly a more complex commentary on the barriers and repressions of life in Victorian England.

The Turn of the Screw is an entertaining, highly enjoyable piece of fiction that provides an interesting window into the life and attitude of the people living in Victorian England. For those who look to analyze, there is plenty of subtext to dig into. However, it also provides a simpler thrill for those looking to enjoy a suspenseful story with a supernatural twist. That said, this is by no means an easy read. Stay away from this book if you're looking for a throwaway thriller for the plane ride. This is real literature, and deserves (as well as demands) a certain amount of attention and interest from the reader. Highly recommended for book lovers; recommended for those looking to expand their literary repertoire.

James is an emotionally insightful and understated author. Re-reading "Wahsington Squre" reminded me how of that. Catherine is an average 1870's New Yorker in every way except one; she's an heiress. Her mother died when she was very young leaving her $10,000 a year. She's set to inherit double that amount from her doctor father. It seems the money is important to everyone but her. Her Aunt Pennyman, her surrogate mother, urges her to encourage Morris, a fortune hunter. Since Catherine's inexperienced and not considered pretty or accomplished or particularly intelligent she's easy pickings when Auntie and would be bridegroom coral her. Her father on the other hand see's clearly that Morris' main desire is Catherine's money. He does everything he can to prevent the union even whisking her to Europe for a year. This is a bittersweet tale where no one is genuinely concerned for Catherine not even herself. With friends and family like this who needs enemies?

I know people sometimes have problems reading James because of his complex writing style. "Washington Square", along with "Portrait of a Lady', is his most accessible book in my opinion. "Washington Square" is also a much shorter than his other major works.

Henry James is one of the most celebrated, and infamous, authors in the whole of literature -- worshipped by critics and literary scholars, but often befuddling to the general reader. This wonderful omnibus collects four of his works: the short novels The Aspern Papers and The Turn of the Screw, which are often bundled together, and two short stories: The Beast In the Jungle and The Jolly Corner. The two short novels are quintessential James -- ambiguous yet somehow suspenseful narratives, wordy and fascinating psychologically-descriptive prose, and open to interpretation. Each are simple stories on the surface; but the dedicated reader, if he or she delves deeply into the texts, will be rewarded with some of the most subtly-satisfying short works ever pinned. The Turn of the Screw is, perhaps, the greatest ghost story ever written, a superb psychological drama which yields many treasures to the Freudian literary sleuth (as, indeed, do all four stories.) For more detailed analyses of these two stories, one may refer to my reviews of them in separate editions. Suffice it to say here that, if one is interested in reading these two stories, this volume is the place to do so, because it also contains...
The two short stories. As short as these two works are, they both yield a myriad treasures to the dedicated reader. They are two superb psychological dramas, finely crafted. The Beast In the Jungle, in particular, is, in many ways, epitomizes James. He takes a very simple, almost clichéd premise and transforms it into something uniquely his own. His prose is very wordy, but not flowery: it functions to convey the depth of emotion felt by the protagonist and also manages to plumb the depths of his mind. These two short works are great reads for the James fan, and the introduction to the book manages to tie them in to the longer works in this volume.
Anyone who has decided to take the plunge into the James canon would do well to start here. In addition to this volume's containing the four aforementioned works, it must also be stated that the Barnes & Noble Classics editions are extremely nice. In addition to usually containing multiple works, which mostly cannot be found together anywhere else, they also boast a variety of supplementary materials which simply cannot be found anywhere else: a nice, substantial introduction addressing all of the works contained within, adequate but not overbearing notes, a sampling of critical and popular opinion on the works, and even a list of questions for discussion and a page with quotes from the book. On top of all this, they are extremely affordable. Very highly recommended.

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. As is obvious from the reviews here by high school students, however, these literary "charms" may be less alluring to those on whom they are imposed as required reading. Mary Whipple

Washington Square reflects an earlier phase of James's stylistic development that eschewed the use of his later convolutions. The writing here is crisp and direct, and the novel itself is a quick read. My only grievance was the lack of character development. Having read Portrait of a Lady first, I could only be disappointed in the grainy sketches of Catherine, Aunt Lavinia, Dr. Sloper, and Morris Townsend. At times, Dr. Sloper's rather cold and calculating personality startles--simply because the reader isn't given enough insight into his character to be prepared for such a development. Surprises of character aren't bad, but James writes as though he himself imagined the audience to be prepared for the shock. That strikes me as being an authorial error, however small. But the writing is good, though not of the caliber of his later work. I would rate this and Daisy Miller about equally.

I've heard a great deal of criticism directed both at this novel and at Henry James himself. "The Turn of the Screw" has been derided as dull and uneventful, while James's writing is scornfully dismissed because of its complexity. I found myself quite surprised at this negative perspective - "The Turn of the Screw" is fascinating and remarkably entertaining.
The story itself is fairly simplistic on the surface. In the hands of a lesser writer, it would have been a simple "things that go bump in the night" ghost story of no consequence. However, the ambiguity of the narration brings the story a great deal of depth. Are we to trust the governess's story, or is the entire plot merely a figment of her imagination or a neurotic response to her sexuality? The brilliance here is in the wide range of interpretation. The entire novel can be taken either way (or both ways at once) equally well, which is fascinating.
Many reviewers have (unfavorably) commented on the writing style of Henry James, noting its complexity and verbosity. While his prose can be difficult to master (I had to read several sentences multiple times to decipher them), the complex language does not merely use extra words for the sake of making the story longer. Instead, every bit of detail in the sentences modifies and elaborates on the text, helping greatly to create the haziness that permeates "The Turn of the Screw." I thoroughly enjoyed the style of writing here, and this is coming from somebody who criticized the language in "Wuthering Heights" and "Tess of the D'Urbervilles." The complexity enhances the novel, rather than weakening it.
All in all, I was astonished by the great quality of "The Turn of the Screw." One last note - I highly recommend the Norton Critical Edition, featuring authorial commentary, reviews, and criticism. An excellent choice.

This is now one of my favorite novels. Henry James is a master storyteller in this novel. It's not very long, just over 120 pages. The chapters are short, which I also enjoy. James weaves together a masterful tale involving a young governess and two ghosts, both of whom are former residents of the mansion. The story involves the struggle between the governess and these ghosts. She attempts to make sense of them, and she is concerned they are attempting to possess the two children. She eventually becomes convinced that the children are being corrupted by these ghosts, and brings this to the attention of Mrs. Grose, their mother. The ending leaves much open to speculation, and while I won't reveal it here, this is the main reason why this novel is still talked about. It is actually quite rewarding to have a open ending, left for the reader to decide exactly what happened.

Washington Square is easily my favorite among the Henry James novels I have read, outdoing even James' magnificent gothic masterpiece, The Turn of the Screw. Washington Square is fast-paced, short in length (it may be read in one sitting) direct in its prose and its characters are both realistic and masterfully-sketched. In this novel, set in New York City in the second half of the nineteenth-century, Catherine, a plain-featured young woman well into adulthood, the unmarried daughter of a reputable physician of post-middle aged years, is wooed by a penniless "gentleman" named Morris Townsend, whom her perspicacious father quickly identifies as a fortune hunter after the substantial inheritance he intends to leave Catherine upon his eventual demise. A conflict arises between Catherine and her dutiful father over the suitor, who pressures Catherine for her hand in marriage, protesting his love, but in the doctor's eyes, gambling that he will not disinherit Catherine as he gives his word he will do should she wed Morris Townsend. The central tension that creates the basis for the novel is brilliantly unfolded in layers, typifying Henry James' rule that a novelist must "show, not tell." The resolution is one James reached after much suspenseful interplay among the principal characters, and I will not reveal it here, except to say it shows a respect for a woman's strength and demonstrates a generous treatment of a female rare in literature of the era (the 1880's).

"Washington Square" is a story bursting with pain, sorrow, egotism, and shattered dreams. Having seen the movies "The Heiress" (1949) and "Washington Square" (1997), I possessed emotions and images going into the book, that others may not feel. Nonetheless, I came to many conclusions. Dr. Sloper, the father who emotionally-starved his only daughter, Catherine, used his money to pit his daughter into her own private Hell. The same money Dr. Sloper thought Morris, Catherine's beau, would use frivolously. He had no qualms about hurting his daughter in any form, and viewed Catherine as the object that took away all of his happiness. Catherine, the plain heiress who was said to lack beauty, intelligence, wit, and anything worthwhile, fears, but loves her father. She thinks he is magnificent, even when he spurts hatred towards her. She falls in love with Morris Townsend, who is said to only want her for her money, and this is when the trials and tribulations begin. Aunt Lavinia, Dr. Sloper's sister and Catherine's Aunt, is a young girl at heart, and only worsens things by her imaginative involvement. Although it must be so, I did not get a full impression that Morris was only after Catherine's money. The story is heart wrenching and you'll feel disgust for the characters, but will also feel shame for them. As a side note, the 1997 movie "Washington Square" is the most faithful of the two movies, excluding the ending, and in my opinion, much more fulfilling than "The Heiress." The latter is dramatic, but does not delve into the main parts of the story. I recommend.

One of the shorter novels by Henry James and relatively simple, comparing to his other works, "Washington Square" is a story of hidden emotions, fear of breaking conventions, and hypocrisy resulting from those conventions.

Dr. Austin Sloper is a prosperous, respected Manhattan physician, a widower with one daughter, Catherine. He boasts a sharp mind and considers himself a good judge of character. Although Catherine is rather a plain and uninteresting girl, admittedly even by her family, she has prospect of coming into considerable wealth. Therefore, when she meets Morris Townsend, a handsome, but idle man, and falls in love, her father is on guard and after some research fiercely opposes the marriage, on the graounds that Townsend is a fortune hunter. Lavinia, Catherine's aunt, however, tries to "help" the couple... Catherine, in the center of attention and subjected to manipulations from people claiming to love her, would seem to be a miserable creature, but she has perhaps the most puzzling and complex personality of all the characters!

These four people are the core of the novel and their psychological portraits are subtle yet acute (nobody is a flat, archetypal figure), the hidden faults and qualities of the main and background characters make them very real and complex, the irony towards the society is very clear. There are many things the reader has to fathom from hints and allusions, not everything is explicitly said so to some extent the motives of the protagonists are open to interpretation.

Henry James is a master of psychological novel of his time, great observer and talented writer (comparable maybe to Jane Austen, he also wrote about subjects he well knew). Although "Washington Square" is not considered one of his best novels, it is nevertheless a masterpiece. Many of the sentences are so full of sarcasm, witty or so extremely right, that even nowadays they could be uttered without change - I consider James a writer, whose work never ages, which is a kind of paradox, considering how firmly they are placed in his time. In addition, it is delightful to read about New York City and imagine times, when Washington Square was uptown...

This novel, which time-wise approaches the creation of Portrait of a Lady, is a look at the exigencies of those for whom desperation subdued is a way of life. Page-wise a short novel, depth-wise an eternal study of the struggle within a family. What was it that Treplev in The Seagull says about Nina. That he destroys her because he felt like it. Catherine's life is peopled by those who, in the name of love or ego or greed, seek, in one way or another, to destroy her. It's such a quiet novel. So nuanced but unlike certain of James's later novels, accessible without having to read each sentence numerous times in order to figure out what the hell he was talking about. This is a novel for those who truly observe others and their surroundings so that a lifted eyebrow can speak worlds. Nowadays with people going around like zombies with their cell (appropriate name) phones or on or in the web, they can only notice their surroundings when some lunatic murders 20 children and 6 teachers. That stops them temporarily. Until once again they return to their text messages, relaying the minutiae of a life unlived, unfelt, undone. In this work James is saying wake up!. Or maybe I'm projecting, maybe I'm simply using this novel like a soap box, maybe I'm saying, you'd better wake up before you're run over by a cement truck.

I haven't read any novels by Henry James before and I'm glad that I started off with his gothic novel (well I had to read it for class).

The story is interesting because you never quite know what is going on. It seems like the ghosts are real but the POV is from the person seeing them, and it could all be in her head. The Governess isn't the best character, but I believe that makes the reader question her even more.

And I recommend checking out the film, The Innocents (1961), which is the best film based on this novel.

I recommend checking this classic out if you enjoy ghost stories or gothic fiction.

Why Henry James despised this work so much is hard to understand, but he did, even refusing to have it included in his NOVELS AND TALES collected works. It's a handsome and interesting story and contains fascinating characterizations of the three main players.

Dr. Austin Sloper and his daughter Catherine reside in Washington Square. At a party Catherine meets Morris Townsend, who steals her heart. But Sloper is wary of him and checks into his background; wariness alters to total disapproval when Catherine tells him Townsend has proposed to her. Sloper takes her to Europe for six months hoping she'll forget him, but she refuses. When they get home again Townsend tells Catherine he will leave her because her father will cut off her inheritance if they persist. Years later after Dr. Sloper dies, Townsend returns to Catherine, but she'll have nothing to do with him.

James's portrayal of the sardonic Dr. Sloper and the shy and somewhat cold Catherine is excellent. Compared to many of his other novels, this one is among the least complicated to understand and appreciate. It was the basis of a classic Hollywood movie, THE HEIRESS, made in 1949, starring Montgomery Clift and Olivia de Havilland. James was wrong about this short novel; it's a real beauty.

In the hands of any other writer, "Washington Square" could have ended up being a simple soap-opera, as its subject is typical of that genre. Catherine Sloper is a rich heiress to a wealthy physician. Her mother has died and she lives with Dad and a spinster of an aunt, an almost Emma Bovary-kind of woman, constantly devising romantic affairs where only the crude reality is happening. Far from the verbosity of other of his works, James uses here a cold, dispassionate approach of high irony and deep psychological insight. Character-building is at the top, more remarkably so for so common and risky a subject. Catherine is not beautiful, but she's destined to become very rich, and then along comes Morris Townsend, a young man from a "good family", but poor and jobless. He is charming and good-looking, and of course shatters Catherine's small world apart with his gentlemanliness and his wit. Catherine falls in love with him, encouraged by the naïve and romantic aunt, who plays intermediary to the lovers. But Dr. Sloper, Catherine's father, is a much more worldly man than the two women. He is cold and astute, and immediately suspects what Morris is after -his money. This is no romantic novel, dreams won't come true, but only the hardets reality. James has written here an acute psychological story, a most realistic one for anyone who wants to read and understand.

A young woman comes to a big countryhouse to serve as governess for two small children, a girl and a boy. They are orphans under the care of their absent uncle. The young woman befriends both the kids and the woman in charge of the house. But soon, she starts seeing two ghosts, and then a terrifying and tense situation ensues. She is sure the kids also see the ghosts, but they deny it. Mrs. Grose believes her, and soon they deduce that they are the spirits of the mean Peter Quint, former valet, and Miss Jessel, former governess, both already deceased. Every conjecture is possible: Do the kids really see the ghosts, as the governess is convinced they do? Are they her hallucinations? We'll never know.
This is a perfect terror novel. The atmosphere is paralyizing, frantic and, at the same time, it's open to numerous interpretations and analyses. It leaves the reader with a sense of disquietness and angst. The first-person narrative is hysterical. Of course, James's prose is perfect for this kind of story: the elegance, the subtlety, the convolutions of his English are best suited for intriguing the reader. The kids are lovable and creepy at the same time, and the mystery is unsolvable, since it is in the mind of the governess, and not in real facts. This short but great masterpiece is worth reading several times, until you start seeing ghosts yourself.

I had long heard of Henry James and his short novella, The Turn of the Screw and decided to read it, thinking that at only 88 pages long, it would not take more than one evening. Three evenings later, I finished the text and I must admit slightly confused. I had to reread the ending several times to truly understand what had happened. Thankfully, I had the critical edition, which included several essays on the story, one in particular by Edmund White which profoundly changed my opinion of the story.
A simple ghost story on the face of it, but in reality a pre-Freudian tale of sexual repression. Narrated by an unnamed governess who ventures to a country house to take charge of two young orphaned children, it soon becomes a tale of ghosts, mysteries and secrets. Always alluded to and never talked about at face value, the governess becomes convinces that the ghosts are after the children and she alone can save them. But are there really ghosts? The reader must go beyond the plot and carefully read the language...all the language. James writes like no other author I have ever read. The best word to describe it is "dense". With almost no dialogue, the narrator can spend pages describing her thoughts and feelings, yet these are so "coded" as to decipher her real meaning takes much concentration on the part of the reader. I know that James himself thought the story an amusement only, but the critical essays I read after the book deeply impressed me that the story has hidden depths which make it all the more interesting.
I would recommend this novella to anyone with the patience to read it thoroughly and with an open mind as to its meaning. I would strongly recommend the critical edition which helps the reader better understand the story's meaning and importance in literature.

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!

The Turn of the Screw was gripping from the time the narrator stepped in the fire-lit room. Though Henry James never blatantly says any opinion of his, he implies much about the social structure of the late 1800's inside the pretense of a ghost story. James's subtle commentary and deliberate ambiguity leads the reader down many different paths that he or she may choose himself or herself. Though his extremely long sentences get bulky and sometimes obtrusive they are soon forgotten when the last pages of the book are flying by so fast that everything you had to wade through is forgotten. The characters are quite mysterious, if not too much so. The main character never has a name (sometimes bothering) and little is known as to whether she is reliable at all to listen too. And since most of the whole novella is written from her point of view the other characters have a lot of depth but very little content. Overall, I'd read the book again but most of what was enjoyable was finding my way about the different endings and coming to my own personal conclusion, which can never be proved or disproved.

Well these are my two favorite works by Henry James. In both James displays his very neatly honed talents for creating fine fictional universes and architecturally perfect stories where all seems to be just right but of course it isn't. James is writing in the still young American tradition of letters but he has cleared away much of the romanticism that was so evident in Hawthorne and Melville. The romanticism still exists but it is not in the writers brain, it exists in the characters alone. James was the first to really write at a remove from his characters. He tells each tale with no authorial comment to sway your opinion of his characters one way or another, he lets the reader make his own observations and draw his own conclusions based on the characters behaviour and thoughts. That authorial distance allows him to simply relate the story, not explain it, and James stories are each as intricate as the psychologies that occupy them. In these two stories he creates very intriguing and complex situations. Both are mysteries and both perhaps have no easy solution or resolution because James lets the complex minds and psychologies of his characters subjectively grapple with a web that they have themselves woven and any resolution would mean an unraveling of their entire character. These are story long webs which can be baffling(Aspern Papers) or terrifying(Turn of the Screw), the psychological webs these characters weave can lead them to frightening extremes(Turn of the Screw) or can serve as a necessary support for the fragile psyche that created them(Aspern Papers). The real thrill of reading James is in how controlled a manner all is told. There are no obvious clues just psychological gradations and patterns which begin adding up to an overall impression. It can seem after finishing one of his stories that nothing much has happened at all, and yet a psychology has all the while been examined and quite thoroughly. Through his stories much is revealed about what lies just beneath the facade of life and what motivates our most basic perceptions, our identity, and our societal or world view. It has been said that James brought the insight of a psycholgist to his stories. But his insights are much more profound than a mere clinicians notes. In James we get a highly discerned character in a highly discerned context and the discerning reader will be entertained and enlightened and inspired to contemplate the workings of ones own intricate structure.

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

The Turn of the Screw has been hailed as one of THE classic gothic/ghost stories. I read it recently and agree that it's brilliant - but not in the way some might expect. Henry James is not an easy writer to read nowadays when every author seems to aim to "hook" the reader from the first page. DON'T read this long short story NOR any other James story or novel if you expect some fast-paced, action-packed thriller. What you will get instead is a very sharply descriptive style that uses language to convey the complex psychology and moods of the characters and events. This kind of works well for a story about a governess and three other main people in pre-20th-century England, in an isolated estate.

The story is simple - a man has two nephews who have become orphans. He lives in the city and isn't really interested so he hires a new goveness (the narrator) after the old one dies. The gonverness is convinced that the estate is haunted and that the ghosts are undergoing creepy conspiratorial communications with the two children.

I found the story did freak me out, for the same reason as why it has been analysed so much in terms of psychology or sexuality. While James may not have meant all that people put into the story, it is an amazing study of the perception of propriety and morality and its relationship to our sense perception. Thus, the whole catch of the tale is that it's perfectly ambiguous - everything can be interpreted from at least two very different angles (read to find out which ones!) - but the interpretation also differs depending on which society's conventions we read the story from.

This makes for an fairly complex and unique book - one that told me as a reader more about myself than it did about any silly ghosts - which I think is the mark of good fiction.

The ultimate "ghost" story from a literary genius. James swims through deep waters in this tale, exploring isolation, the possibilities of mental illness, and child abuse and its manifestations in a child's personality. Our governess has entered a house with a dark, dark past, and the nightmarish discoveries and disturbances grip the reader like an ice cold hand. This story is the result of a true master of the English language exploring what is left in the wake of disturbed and corrupted lives. There seems to be debate in the literary world as to what is "really" going on in this book. Mental illness? Evil or innocent children? It trully is up to the reader to decide if the ghosts are real or a product of our heroine's mind, but as far as the children's past, a key character makes statements that solidified that actuality for me. Read it!

“The Turn of the Screw” by acclaimed author Henry James (1848-1916) is a strange little ghost-story novella.

The Governess of Miles and Flora is 100% nuts, and grossly self-preoccupied, unlikeable in the extreme. She imagines that the ghosts of the former governess and estate groundskeeper (both dead) have come to haunt her own tenure as governess (and terrorize the children). She ends up making life miserable for everyone with her absurd imaginations and proclivities for macabre mental meanderings. The portrayal of the children, giving them easy to disbelieve super-child qualities, is quite over the top.

This first person story is written in the very British “old style” use of excessive musings and self-involved thoughts. It’s a rather quick read (thankfully), and the writing style is tedious at times, though exciting at other times, especially in the final 40% of the little book. Overall, the story moves slowly, though James is masterful at creating (out of nothing, really) a feeling of suspense and foreboding. Little wonder it was popular at the time, and also the source of vast over-analysis and abundant literary criticism, (including analysis of the fictional Governess by a Freudian psychoanalyst).

In my own mind, it’s “Much Ado About Nothing”, just an amusing little story about a fanciful time long ago when such stories and ghostly expectancies had some kind of popular appeal.

I think it’s rather mediocre, actually, and can award it only a 2 on the the store rating scale.

Although Henry James is best known for The Portrait of a Lady (Penguin Classics), this slender volume of a young woman's lifetime is one that resonates for the oddest reasons. With a protagonist who is entirely passive, a plot that is somewhat uneventful and a cast of supporting characters that are entirely unsympathetic, "Washington Square" is a novel that encapsulates a life hardly worth reading about. Paradoxically, that is precisely why it should be read, and why it's so surprisingly memorable.

Catherine Sloper is shy, plain, dull and a little slow in her studies. Her mother was none of these things, leaving her somewhat of a disappointment to her father, an accomplished and well-respected doctor, a man who Catherine adores and longs to please. Well aware of her spiritless nature, Catherine is astonished when she receives the attention of the handsome and charming Morris Townsend, and is soon devotedly in love with her new suitor. Encouraged by her romantic and foolish Aunt Lavinia Penniman, Catherine accepts Morris's proposal of marriage. Unfortunately, her father is not at all impressed by the match, (believing Morris to be a mercenary after her dowry) and forbids Catherine from seeing him on the threat of disinheritance. Torn between the two most important people in her life, the listless and confused Catherine decides to wait. But will her beloved wait for her, or is she deceived by his true intentions?

Catherine's complete ordinariness is what makes her special within the context of the novel, as I am hard-pressed to think up another heroine who is so uncommonly common. Though she is a pleasant enough person, there is nothing remotely interesting to her, save the predicament she finds herself in. Her situation is frustrating to behold, as the poor girl is torn between her intelligent, infallible father and her charming, loving fiancée. Although her father has his daughter's best interests at heart, he handles the affair with such practicality and stubbornness that his crusade against Townsend eventually dwindles into a battle of will between himself and his daughter, and then petty revenge and one-upmanship. Likewise, though Morris Townsend seems faithful and loving, declaring that he has no interest in Catherine's inheritance whatsoever, we cannot shake a sense of untrustworthiness in him. Despite Catherine's plainness, you can't help but feel that neither man deserves her.

To be privy to Catherine's inner struggles is to witness a tiny and insignificant life within literature, with none of the romance, passion or tragedy of Lizzie Bennett, Tess Durbeyfield, Cathy Earnslaw, Jane Eyre, or any other literary heroine that comes to mind. Although Mrs Penniman alleviates some of the gloom with her far-flung intrigues and romances, her presence ultimately brings more harm that good to her young charge. Catherine is a woman who suffers in silence, without witness or companionship, a testimony to how passive-aggressiveness, lost opportunities and selfishness can destroy the life of one who has no means of fighting back. Every single individual on earth would like to believe that they are special, unique and important in some way, and the mediocrity of a life ill-spent becomes quite terrifying by the close of the novel. Catherine's attempts to assert some control over her father and her suitor are pitiful to behold, though they are victories, they are tiny ones within the context of her life. It's almost as if James uses Catherine as a vessel for every individual who has simply "misplaced" their life, and the emptiness that follows those who don't have the means, strength or fortitude to fight against those that hold them in sway. Make sure it never happens to you.

read it during a classic horror kick, but for me and perhaps for other modern readers the convoluted sentences and lack of truly frightening scenes makes for a lethargic read. I'd been reading about the significance of the ghost story in Victorian lit as symbolic of the era's obsession with the past. Any short article you'd find on the importance The Turn of the Screw in that context would be more interesting (I think) than reading the book itself.

This relatively short novel is a wonderful way to become acquainted with the writing style of Henry James.Washington Square is much more accessable than some of his other works.
The plot revolves around a young woman who is living in Washington Square with her widowed physician father and his sister. The daughter Catherine is not considered particularly attractive by her father so that when a handsome young man begins to court her the father is imediately suspicious of his motives since Catherine is his only heir.
The tension between the father and his daughter is offset by the bond that the Aunt develops with the young man .
James allows us to perceive the motivations of each of these primary characters and we come to recognise that Catherine is in fact in danger of being deceived. The father who is not a very sympathetic character is insightful enough to do what is necessary in his view to prevent this.
The characters are all well concieved and remain true to type throughout the story.
A bonus is the setting of old New York and the scenes of a growing city are vividly drawn. Imagine a time when moving "uptown" meant moving to what is now the Village.
Overall I really enjoyed this and would highly recommend it

James's narrative style is bit difficult for me to read. It seems to me that, at least in this story, he writes in a breathless, phrase filled steam of consciousness style - similar, but more so, to this sentence. Most sentences contain many phrases having more or less to do with the subject of the sentence but getting to a point that I would re-read many of them to try to sort out exactly what was intended. Oftentimes, I felt that I only got the gist of the sentence before moving on. The story is intriguing and I was dying to understand it. In the end, I think that a great deal of the ambiguity is intentional. This is one case where I may end up resorting to help from Cliff in interpretation.
The story of the unnamed governess is given as a sort of ghost story told among friends but originating from the real manuscript of the narrator's sister's governess of the spectral occurrences she witnessed at a previous position she had had when she was younger. Accepting a post at Bly as governess to a young girl who's brother was away to school, she is under the strict interdiction not to make reports to her employer, the children's legal guardian and uncle. Shortly after the beginning of her engagement, the male child returns from the school, presumably for the holidays, but a letter from the headmaster informs her that he is not to be allowed back. No reasons are given and a mystery develops over why a child so innocent seeming as he should be outcast. Mystery continues to flourish as the new governess begins to see two people on the grounds that are identified by the housekeeper on their descriptions as the previous governess and the employer's man - both deceased. As the governess becomes convinced that the apparitions have malevolent designs on the children, she enters into a struggle of evasion and confrontation, dealing with things half-said or unspoken. While I was truly clueless most of the time as to exactly what her suspicions were, the ending seemed to illuminate them and was very powerful. I think that the design of the story is to play on the reader's imagination and interpretation ... I think. This is one story where I will seek out other's reactions to see if I read it the same way they did; but even if other's reader's interpretation are vastly different I still believe that that allowance for each reader's imagination to give the shape to the story is remarkable.

I picked this out of a box of my university books while cleaning out the basement, thinking I would try a page or two before tossing it. An hour later, I climbed the stairs, admitting I was going to read the whole thing and enjoy it. I think the other reviewers have done a marvelous job of plot detail as well as literary merits in terms of character stude, period piece, etc, so I will add just the one thing I haven't read in the few reviews I have read:
Henry James is a wordsmith. He enjoys words, relishes them, and composes with them in such a way as to share his love of language with the reader.
THIS is what made this book a joy to me. Many times I found myself rereading sentences and then reading them aloud, just pleased with the way they were worded. "She had given this account, at least, to everyone but the Doctor, who never asked for explanations which he could entertain himself any day with inventing," writes James in Chapter II of Mrs. Penniman, and I had to read that one three or four times before I stopped smiling.
Read it while awake, read it while alert, read it when you have time and quiet to enjoy the pure music of James' prose, for at least to me, that is the beauty of Washington Square.

Washington Square has the "best of both worlds" amongst the works of Henry James. It doesn't have the brilliant yet boring narrative of his longer novels but it does have sufficient characterization often lacking in his novellas. Washington Square captures the mood of 1830s New York and the lonely live of a bland young rich woman (a daughter of a widowed doctor). She is wooed unexpectedly by an attractive young man, much to the regret of her father who thinks he is nothing more than a gold-digger. Ultimately our leading lady must choose between her lover and her father. Not an easy choice. And it is this choice which changes her outlook on life. Yes, it is a moving story. But fortunately it does not degrade into a tear-jerker.
Washington Square is the basis of a rather popular 1949 film titled 'The Heiress' starring Olivia de Havilland and Montgomery Clift. The first half of the film follows the novel to a 'T', but then the film deviates into a more melodramatic (yet enjoyable) track. Overall the film and novel are mutually exclusive in that if you've experienced one you probably won't enjoy the other.

Henry James is one of my favorite authors and this novella is one of my favorite books. It's a ghost story, it's horror, it's suspense, but what set it head and shoulders above most ghost/horror/suspense stories is the fact that it's strictly psychological.
A young governess secures a position at what appears to be a lovely English manor house and she soon discovers that nothing is what is seems and things are definitely not as they should be.
James has a highly stylized way of writing and he loved using long, convoluted sentences, even when saying something quite simple. Some readers might find this a litle jarring, but for me it only adds to the atmosphere of the book.
Over the years there has been much speculation about the meaning of this story, especially the enigmatic ending. I know what I think, but I won't give anything away here. Read The Turn of the Screw yourself and be prepared for a scary evening of surprises and perhaps even a sleepless night.

Perhaps James tried to vary himself with this endeavor, but regardless it was an unsuccessful attempt. Upon first thought, one associates James with the genteel socialite class and their romantic occupations. "Turn" is, obviously, a far cry from this norm and perhaps reinforces the certainty that James should remain in the arena where he is most comfortable.
The problem with "Turn" does not reside in any of the usual constructions of a novel. The plot has promise; the characters are appealing; the pacing is steady and well regulated. The problem with "Turn" is that James dulls down all of the potential thrills and scares with his over-sophisticated language. Is the language confusing?--No! Does it hinder all potential the novel has to be a truly terrifying ghost story?--Yes!
When James addresses his more preferable--and more appropriate--topic of upperclass romance, his language and dialects suit the frivolous and intellectual nature of the characters. In this case, one becomes so enthralled by the words on the page--meaning the physical type and sentence construction alone--that one cannot spare his attention to the frightening visions that James attempts to call to the reader's mind.
The unfortunate thing is that the story is--or rather COULD BE--a spine-tingling tale, if not for that one undeniable detail. The children have real potential to be utterly creepy, the apparitions have the potential to be mysterious and unsettling, but instead we see an overanalyzed attempt at horror. The key to instilling fear in a reader is to provide a wry depiction of the momentary surprise and uncertainty that comes at the times of perceived terror. James gives us elongated appositives of needlessly verbose explanation.
In short, James is a good writer, a great writer, but that distinction can only be attributed to the novels that compliment his sophisticated language. Horror does not compliment it. Good try, Henry, but you'd be wise to stick with what works.

Since this story is widely considered one of the best ghost stories ever written, I decided to give it ago via an Audible recording. Perhaps I would have been more taken in by the story had I read it on the page. They eye tends to catch more nuances in a story than the ear. In any case, it's a good story, but not one that comes off as overly scary for modern readers. In its day, I can imagine the emotional impact was more pronounced. However, it's a necessary building block in what the suspense and horror genre would eventually morph into.

This classic book is a ghost story of sorts. It is not the traditional kind, with chains and things, but it is more of a psychological suspence story. A young governess goes to take care of two children- Flora, age 8, and Miles, age 10. She soon learns that their old governess and her lover both mysteriously died. As the story goes on she begins to see apparitions of the two dead people, and she is convinced that the children have something to with it. During the whole story she works to save them from the ghosts. However, you are left to decide the whole time whether what she is seeing is real or if the kids are really guilty or if she is psycho or what.
I liked the way the plot went because I was left to figure out and interpret things for myself the whole way along. James did not just come out and say things but left them to be interpreted by many different ways. This may be frustrating for readers who like the story to be spelt out to them, but if you like suspense and trying to see a story from many different viewpoints, you will like the story too.

I really enjoyed reading Henry James' "The Turn of the Screw", though the middle is plagued with inflated wording common to the era. It is interesting to trace modern concepts used in scary stories and horror movies today back to the originations of the genre. In my Gothic Literature class, however, we have been tracing these ideas from the very beginning with such works as Walpole's "The Castle of Otranto" and Radcliffe's "The Mysteries of Udolpho" that predate James, and it is also immensely interesting to see how they evolved.
This, I believe, is one of the very first stories with the "governess" figure, who later reappears again and again throughout the genre as the babysitter or other non-parental caregiver. Aside from this supposed new (at the time) concept, this story is constructed in the similar style and formula as previous and later Gothic novels and branch-off novels, what with the slow suspense working up to a drop off and unclear climax. James, dabbling somewhat out of what is usual for him, employs familiar devices such as nightly ghostly interactions, blundering, though well-intentioned servants, and the young, lone woman venturing to a new, unknown place under mysterious and foreboding circumstances.
Though slightly predictable, it's fun and short, and the Dover Thrift Edition is really [inexpensive]. I would definitely recommend it.

Washington Square is a searing portrait of selfishness, cruelty and manipulation that brings a radically new psychological depth to the traditional 19th century novel of manners. In Dr. Sloper James created one of his most insidious characters; a clever, genial man of the world who would rather sees his principles confirmed than his daughter happy. Catherine, the plain victim of a suave fortune-seeking fiancé, has to rank with Melville's Bartleby as a model of passive resistance. As she awakens to her father's flaws, Catherine shows the plodding strength of innocence in the face of his high-handed manipulation. The self-absorbed spinster aunt Lavinia completes the picture, using her niece's courtship as a way to work out her own thwarted romantic desires. Everyone is using everyone for something else, in typical Jamesian fashion, but doing it with style--even in this early work, James had an uncanny feeling for the crude drives that veiled themselves behind good manners and the conventions of respectable society. A great read that has to rank as one of James's darkest and most insightful novels.

Washington Square is a pleasure to read. Best of all is Henry James' lush prose; his ethereal descriptions of characters and their emotional states and feelings towards others is peerless - and beautiful, and often funny in a stylistic sense. The novel itself functions as an expostition of human greed and the need for control, physically and emotionally. The four focal characters are all well drawn, and because of that their more despicable natures come forward. The naive Catherine; her father, the overbearing Dr. Sloper; his sister, the officious Mrs. Penniman; and the greedy, and lazy, Morris Townsend, ostensibly interested in Catherine only for her, and her father's, money. There is plenty of scheming and posturing by all four of them, and any more words from me will spoil the novel. Also amusing, is the dated sensibilities of the characters; but it all adds up to an enjoyable novel by an American master.

I really enjoyed reading Henry James' "The Turn of the Screw", though the middle is plagued with inflated wording common to the era. It is interesting to trace modern concepts used in scary stories and horror movies today back to the originations of the genre. In my Gothic Literature class, however, we have been tracing these ideas from the very beginning with such works as Walpole's "The Castle of Otranto" and Radcliffe's "The Mysteries of Udolpho" that predate James, and it is also immensely interesting to see how they evolved.
This, I believe, is one of the very first stories with the "governess" figure, who later reappears again and again throughout the genre as the babysitter or other non-parental caregiver. Aside from this supposed new (at the time) concept, this story is constructed in the similar style and formula as previous and later Gothic novels and branch-off novels, what with the slow suspense working up to a drop off and unclear climax. James, dabbling somewhat out of what is usual for him, employs familiar devices such as nightly ghostly interactions, blundering, though well-intentioned servants, and the young, lone woman venturing to a new, unknown place under mysterious and foreboding circumstances.
Though slightly predictable, it's fun and short, and the Dover Thrift Edition is really [inexpensive]. I would definitely recommend it.

Washington Square is a searing portrait of selfishness, cruelty and manipulation that brings a radically new psychological depth to the traditional 19th century novel of manners. In Dr. Sloper James created one of his most insidious characters; a clever, genial man of the world who would rather sees his principles confirmed than his daughter happy. Catherine, the plain victim of a suave fortune-seeking fiancé, has to rank with Melville's Bartleby as a model of passive resistance. As she awakens to her father's flaws, Catherine shows the plodding strength of innocence in the face of his high-handed manipulation. The self-absorbed spinster aunt Lavinia completes the picture, using her niece's courtship as a way to work out her own thwarted romantic desires. Everyone is using everyone for something else, in typical Jamesian fashion, but doing it with style--even in this early work, James had an uncanny feeling for the crude drives that veiled themselves behind good manners and the conventions of respectable society. A great read that has to rank as one of James's darkest and most insightful novels.

Washington Square is a pleasure to read. Best of all is Henry James' lush prose; his ethereal descriptions of characters and their emotional states and feelings towards others is peerless - and beautiful, and often funny in a stylistic sense. The novel itself functions as an expostition of human greed and the need for control, physically and emotionally. The four focal characters are all well drawn, and because of that their more despicable natures come forward. The naive Catherine; her father, the overbearing Dr. Sloper; his sister, the officious Mrs. Penniman; and the greedy, and lazy, Morris Townsend, ostensibly interested in Catherine only for her, and her father's, money. There is plenty of scheming and posturing by all four of them, and any more words from me will spoil the novel. Also amusing, is the dated sensibilities of the characters; but it all adds up to an enjoyable novel by an American master.

In contrast to James's earlier novels, where European and American ideals are often embodied in the form of beautiful women of superficiality on one side and less attractive women of substance on the other (with the male figures torn between the respective attractions of each), in Washington Square (1880), James follows his more nuanced and intriguing characterisation of Daisy Miller (1878) with another fascinating female protagonist - a quite plain and ordinary heroine - and finds in her another means to look at social attitudes.

Catherine Sloper is the daughter of an eminent and respected widower doctor who lives at Washington Square in New York. She's not clever, not pretty and a bit of a glutton for cream cakes, but she is clearly good, obedient and docile. These aren't qualities that Dr Sloper believes will result in a distinguished marriage, and he reluctantly accepts the fact, leaving his daughter's upbringing and education in the hands of his sister Mrs Penniman, a widow. At the ripe old age of 22, Catherine, shy, sensitive and of a delicate disposition, remains unmarried and indeed uncourted.

When a young man shows interest in his daughter, Dr. Sloper is initially amused, but suspicious of the fact that Morris Townsend has no money, no position and appears to be living off his married sister, who herself is not at all wealthy, and seeing no attraction in his own daughter other than the dowry and inheritance that she will come into, he takes a great dislike to the young man and opposes any suggestion of a marriage. Mrs Penniman however has romantic ideas about a secret union and tries to encourage both parties to go against her brother's wishes. Poor Catherine seems to be caught in the middle with no will or volition of her own.

Washington Square is not the most impressive Henry James, but it's a slim little novel that is delightfully twisted in its own way, and neatly and satisfactorily wrapped up as ever with James, who never goes against the tone of his stories. It's very much a "talkie" book - everyone has meetings with everyone else and has a frank conversation, believing they are being honest and upfront, with the best interests of Catherine at heart, but in reality, they care for nothing more than themselves, their own sense of self-importance and self-interest and how they are regarded in society if Catherine has no concerns for it herself. It's in the absence of any volition on the part of the rather nondescript Catherine that both Mrs Penniman and Dr. Sloper (and to a large extent even Morris Townsend as well) go as far as enacting on her behalf the passions she appears to lack - passions that prove to be false and misplaced, while Catherine remains true.

Washington Square is a popular James novel for its romantic novelistic touches, even if it was never a favourite of the author himself. It's far from the strongest Henry James novel, not even of his earlier work, but the characterisation is well observed, never giving in to standard expectations, and carried through realistically - and almost cruelly - to the end. Catherine (along with the aforementioned Daisy Miller) is at least one of James's most interesting female characters of this period - one that seems to operate outside the normal binary distinctions one finds in early James works.

This little book started off very slowly as the diary of a governess of two children at a country estate. She sees apparitions of her dead predecessor and another dead hired hand and thinks that they are trying to take the children away with them to the other world. She keeps her eye on the children constantly to protect them from this evil. The first half to two-thirds of the book is very wordy, repetitive with convoluted language, often making no sense, full of unnecessary adverbs. It seems like very poor writing until you put it in context: it was written by a mentally disturbed woman who is describing her life and situation. Near the very end, the action does pick up once her insanity begins to emerge. The two children, who first loved her, become fearful of her; a servant takes the little girl away to protect her, leaving the little boy alone with the batty governness. I won't spoil the end but it's not for the faint of heart. I liked "Daisy Miller" better I think, but Henry James does tend to put an odd spin on things.

Henry James's tale is the last of the gothic Victorian novellas, with its richly developed sense of propriety-- a semblance of manners and understatement concealing primitive subliminal impulse. Its dense, symbolic language penetrates deeply into the psyche. There is evil here. But its emanation is ambiguous and amorphous. The characters exist in a pervasive atmosphere of dread. The exact source of that dread has intrigued readers since it was written before the turn the (20th) century. Central to James's fable is the character of the Governess. Was she deluded, predatory or ennobled? Her motives hold the key to the solution-- if there is a solution.
James reveled in brooding, subversive sexual undercurrents. The suspense is ethereal since nothing is sure in James's painstakingly constructed psychological panorama. What is real here? Whose innocence is being corrupted? It's all a mystery, wrapped in a riddle, cloaked in a-- well, ghost story! But riddles are meant to be solved. James has provided us all the necessary clues. The text fills barely 88 pages, but the critical interpretation, covering a century, shows the enduring capacity of 'the Screw' to engage the imagination. The analyses mirrors our changing attitudes toward children, psychology and the nature of evil. The Norton Critical Edition includes an excellent survey of various commentaries over the decades, which provide fascinating insight into contemporary mores as they were pressed into decoding James's great puzzle.

What an awful father. This poor sweet girl has attention from a handsome man and throws it away to honor her horrible father. Is it just a different age, where daughters were completely respectful of their parents, despite their own unhappiness?
In no way did I think Morris was a cad.
This book was depressing in its sadness and lack of hope.
The ending was terrible.

The first time I read this book, I knew it would be one I'd read over and over again. I first read it my freshman year of college in the midst of taking multiple lit and psych courses (Lit major, Psych minor). I immediately fell into this story. I loved the "Is she crazy? or are they real?" questions. And the morbid and fascinatingly brutal ending. Because I was such an avid reader and very deep into my studies of psychology, this book fit perfectly into my studies. I was originally going to write my thesis on this book, but in the long run, it has proven too redundant. Every one and their grandmother has written their interpretation of the story and it became impossible for me to have an idea of my own. But, the one thing I truly love about this story is that it is STILL considered one of the best thrillers of all time. At the time it was written, this kind of psychological thriller didn't exist. I suppose it helps to have a famous psychologist for a brother. This story did for thrillers tales what the exorcist did for thriller movies.

An amazing book by an amazing author.

Henry James enjoys one of the most towering reputations in all of literature, much of this owing to his being, infamously, a "hard" author to read and understand, due to his verbosity and complexity of style; he is second in this department, perhaps, only to James Joyce himself. His short novel The Turn of The Screw in many ways exemplifies these Jamesian qualities, it being, perhaps, the archetypal James story. The story can be taken on two different levels (or, perhaps, both at once): one level as a simple ghost story, on another as a much more complex and teasingly ambiguous pre-Freudian psychological masterpiece (these Freudian interpretations have, as is also the case with Hamlet, become so inundated into the general literary consciousness that it is now almost impossible to view the work outside of their critical context -- but it must also be noted that James himself repeatedly repudiated such an approach to this work during his lifetime.) The work can be seen as the epitome of narrative ambiguity: it raises many questions, most of which are never satisfactorily resolved. To the reader looking for a quick read, or a good ghost story, this can be immensely frustrating; to those looking to plumb the buried psychological depths of the Freudian literary landscape, it is a positive goldmine. Few stories of this length have attracted so much literary criticism -- The Turn of the Screw being matched in that department probably only by Kafka's The Metamorphosis. James introduces many subtleties into this story that the reader can pursue as far as he or she wishes. One may wonder, for example, if the ghosts really exist, or if they are merely the projections of the governess to account for her own repressed sexual impulses. Does she have repressed sexual feelings for Miles? Are the ghosts, if they exist, there to harm and abuse the children, or to protect them? Which of the two is the governess, after all, doing? These ubiquitous questions, and many others, have served to fascinate and delight literary critics for over a century -- and frustrated many general readers. On that note, I feel that I must defend James's characteristically verbose writing style, at least as he used it for this work. The book is not too wordy or descriptive: the long stretches without dialogue provide necessary, not to mention fascinating, glimpses into the inner workings of the narrator's mind. Clearly, James is not being wordy just in order to make the story longer: there are just as many instances of details being left out, facts held back, and descriptions being intentionally vague as there are instances of what many would consider superfluous. James here shows himself to be nothing less than a true master, his characteristic and unique use and manipulation of the English language his defining trait. If this is not one's cup of meat, one does not have to read it -- anyway, why, one wonders, would the casual reader ever want to attempt James? That said, if one is interested in James, or in classic literature, then this is a very good book to start with. It is short, and it serves well to introduce the reader to James's writing style. If one is merely looking for an entertaining ghost story, on the other hand, one had better look elsewhere.
Advice on which edition to get: if one is merely attempting to own this story, without the peripheral critical analyses, then the Dover Thrift Edition comes highly recommended: it is full-text and extremely inexpensive. If one wishes to get a better grasp of the story, however, and explore its many complexities and underlying subtleties, then one should shell out the extra cash for an annotated edition, of which many exist.

In a contemporary world where people love high tech, fast-moving thrillers, escapist fare of all sorts and celebrity gossip, Henry James provides everyone - with every taste - the perfect introduction to classic literature. Featuring his sometime obtuse but mesmerizing prose, Turn Of The Screw is slim, and ultimately supremely satisfying, even in its refusal to answer questions. If you loved The Sixth Sense, for example, you will be drawn in by the ghost story told here, and wonder over and over who exactly is mad, evil and forever lost. An entertainingly different story, this book will forever be fresh because it is truly a work of lasting art. Do yourself a favor, and spend the few bucks to open up a whole new world; if you are like me, you will be looking for others of James' compelling and infinitely interesting novels, all of which contain moral ambiguities, women who are strong, strange and fascinating, and stories that do far more than provide action and escape - they make you feel, think and wonder.

This omnibus collects two of Henry James's best and most well-known shorter works, The Aspern Papers and The Turn of the Screw. Both adhere to James' reputation of being very dense and operating on multiple levels at once. The Turn of the Screw, in particular, though very short for a novel, is almost startlingly complex -- practically begging for multiple close readings and a thorough overview of the criticism. Specifics aside, both stories are masterful suspense exercises. The Aspern Papers manages to work up a general feeling of expectancy and apprehension, while The Turn of the Screw conjures up dark and sinister vision of intrigue. They manage to keep the reader reading -- and reading -- and re-reading. Both are filtered, of course, through James's characteristically ambiguous narrative. It has been well-said that James surrounds a narrative and illuminates parts with a flickering light rather than pinning it down. The endings of both stories, at least one of which is positively shocking, leave many elements unresolved. James forces us reader to draw our own conclusions. This, along with his generally unique style, makes great reading for the dedicated. Here are two of his best stories for our enjoyment.

This book by Henry James is as different as can be from his longer works, but it has its own charm. The charactization is quite complex for a novella. It's just unfortunate that Catherine is so unredeemably staid. I realize that quite a few women chose to live a life alone in those days, but she seemed quite plodding to me. She does develop into a spinster that seems to enjoy that state. And Morris is quite the cad, but we the readers are never in any doubt as to that. The doctor father is another story, He's so right-minded that it's difficult to imagine anyone could be that stubborn. And the widowed aunt is a treasure - silly, manipulative and oh so romantic. This novella is written like a play since there are only four main characters, and most of the action takes place in the house on Washington Square. I really think this book looks deceptively simple, but it is not as simple as it appears. I enjoyed the story.

Washington Square is an amazingly easy read. The overall storyline is simple enough to follow: A young woman with a large fortune, Catherine Sloper, is being pursued by an almost penniless, yet handsome and charming, young man, Morris Townsend. The heroine's father, Dr. Sloper, is against the match, saying he will disinherit Catherine if she decides to marry Morris. So the overrall question is will she choose love or duty? Simple, isn't it? This is what makes this book so wonderful and clever. James uses such a simple storyline to draw out complex and complicated characters that make you question what their real motives are.
James' immediate portrayals of his characters seem almost one-dimensional. Beginning with the book's heroine, Catherine is seen as a plain, dull, and almost stupid girl with an unyielding devotion to her father. Dr. Sloper is an intelligent and prosperous man, who unfortunately cares little for his daughter because she is 'decidedly not clever.' Dr. Sloper's sister, Mrs. Penniman, is shown as a meddlesome aunt. And finally, one can already guess, that Morris Townsend, the penniless young charmer, is none other than a fortune hunter. When once you see him, can you doubt that he is only after Catherine for her money? Yet, throughout the novel, new sides of each character are being shown, creating multi-faceted characters out of the simple and easy to understand characters we first see. Catherine isn't as simple-minded as originally made out to be. Her devotion to her father is understandable because you know that she is a merely being a good and pure and loyal daughter. But we also see that her loyalty and devotion can be given to someone other than her father. We see Catherine does have some backbone because she is so steadfast in her loyalty concerning both her father and Morris. Dr. Sloper's motives are very unclear. He is rough and tough towards his daughter, but he cannot continue being indifferent to her. Is it because he finally has found some feeling for her or because his pride has taken a blow? Aunt Penniman: what is her real motive concerning Catherine and Morris' relationship? And throughout the book, you are never really sure if Morris is just after Catherine's money or if he really does love her in some fashion.
It is a quick and satisfying read, but beware that this is not a romance. There are topics found in the novel that anybody can relate to, be it from sympathizing with Catherine's character, or understanding something of the others. Even though there are many things to think about and question after reading this book, it is definitely worth your while to read this book.

"Washington Square" is one of Henry James's earliest, shortest, and most accessible novels. However, the term "most accessible" is relative: "Washington Square" is easy to read compared to James's later work like "Wings of the Dove," but if you have never read James, be prepared for unusual syntax, long, twisty sentences, and very dense description of characters and actions. Although this is a short novel, it is not to be read in an afternoon.

The book is about a young woman named Catherine Sloper, the only surviving child of a doctor. The doctor, while he treats his daughter kindly, regards her as dull, unattractive, and unspectacular in every way. He is therefore suspicious when a young man named Morris Townsend takes an interest in her. Townsend is charismatic, but poor; Catherine, because of an inheritance from her mother and money she is due to get from her father, is quite well off. Dr. Sloper suspects, and the reader is clearly meant to see, that Townsend is interested in Catherine only for her money. The doctor attempts to separate them, threatening to cut Catherine out of his will, while at the same time Catherine's idealistic, meddlesome aunt attempts to bring them together. Both are surprised when Catherine's will turns out to be stronger than they had reckoned.

In many ways this is a sad and affecting book, but I can't wholly recommend it. Part of it is just my own personal impatience with James's style. Also, short as the book is, it is still really too long for the subject. A note on the text indicates that it was originally intended as a short story, and it might have been better that way. But if you are looking for a relatively easy introduction to Henry James, this or "Daisy Miller" would be a good choice.

Henry James' The Turn of the Screw is a psychological thriller that will leave you guessing -maybe a little too much. This novella is a very quick, gripping tale about a young governess who is hired to raise two orphaned children. She is immediately drawn to the children's beauty and manners, but soon begins to question their honesty after she starts to perceive ghosts around the estate. Convinced that everyone else is able to see the specters as well, but just won't admit it, she becomes obsessed with getting her sights confirmed. Also concerned with the children's safety, the governess works tirelessly in an attempt to protect them from this possible danger.
Going into this book, I was expecting to be terrified out of my wits, but I was disappointed in that regard. The terror was not as blatant as I was anticipating, yet was still satisfying in other regards. Instead of being drenched in blood, the frightening aspects were more psychological. Henry James did a wonderful job of describing the emotions of the main character, the governess. Having such an acute viewpoint into her mind created depth and intensity as she not only wondered about her spirit sightings, but about her own sanity as well.
James' writing is also very ambiguous. Throughout the entire novella, the reader is seeking desperately for answers, but to no avail. This story is full of mystery, secrecy, and silence. I found this to be refreshing, yet frustrating at the same time. On one hand, by leaving so much unanswered, the reader is able to incorporate their own ideas and thoughts into the story. The imagination can run wild and remain unleashed without these definitive answers. However, after the dramatic buildup of the mysteries, I was looking forward to discovering the truth and unraveling the riddle. The end was slightly disheartening to me, as I expected a remarkable, impressive reveal which did not occur.
Overall, I would recommend this book to someone who is looking to not necessarily be horrified, but have their mind haunted by unresolved puzzles. This book will challenge you, and keep you entertained, as long as you are willing to do your part along the way.

Some critics have passed Henry James's book off as a trues ghost story -- it's not. The Turn of the Screw is a tale that has been retold -- many times over by multiple narrators within the story -- since the governess wrote her original manuscript a few decades after the events took place. The apparitions are representations of the horrors the children witnessed at the hands of Mr. Quint and Miss Jessel. James leaves out the details of exactly what happened, so readers may develop their own conclusions. The sexual and supernatural ambiguities only heighten the reader's senses. The questions James leaves us with is: Were the children molested by Mr. Quint and Miss Jessel? Did the very young and impressionable children witness Mr. Quint and Miss Jessel, who were lovers, in an intimate act of passion? What kills little Miles in the end? The Turn of the Screw is an excellent tale of horror and suspense that leaves everything to the reader's imagination! Excellent book, however, the writing style is difficult at times to follow.

One can accept either of the two established opinions -- that the children did see the ghosts and the governess was telling the truth; or that the children saw nothing, but were frightened by the hallucinating governess -- or one can realize that James intended the reader to be nagged by doubt concerning this -- and a few other -- questions. The question of doubt goes beyond the governess's account. Whether or not one believes her, Quint and Miss Jessel are real, evil figures. But how evil can they have been if they left the children so seemingly innocent? If one believes the governess, so evil that the children's innocence is merely a sham. But there is too much doubt planted and not enough known about the nature of the evil for this to be at all convincing. If one disbelieves the governess, then are the children uncorrupted? In that case, what would explain Mrs. Grose's abhorrence? The abundance of unanswerable questions hints at a void at the center of the story. So do, of course, the multiple frames and narrative ellipses. But is that void simply a void, or is it itself a ghost? How many readers have been haunted by this story, unable to shake it, disturbed and unsatisfied? How many, in other words, have felt like the governess felt? Worse, how many have felt the empty evil at the heart of this ghostly void, the feeling that James may be playing a terrible trick, may have something even worse up his sleeve than whatever dark suggestions the reader's own imagination may have conjured up? The story is not unfathomable, however. Like so many of James's other stories, especially those written during the previous few years, it is about a writer -- in this case the governess -- who fails. The children she takes care of are no less imaginary than the ghosts she describes. It is she who muddies the waters, not James. There are evil ghosts out there, but they live in pens and pencils, not old houses.

The Turn of the Screw presents a story revolving around a governess and her sanity; whether or not the ghost she is seeing are truly there or is she delusional and making it all up. Henry James narrates the story from the governess's point of view for the majority of the story which allows the reader to investigate the reality of the ghost. For me, the idea of a lady being haunted by ghost in an area she has never been in with children who seem perfect is appealing. The use of the children is the true "creepiness" of the tale. The children don't misbehave and they are beautiful to look at, but their secrets have secrets and it is hard to determine if they are trust worthy or not. With the ghost appearing around the same time that Miles (the second child) arrives home after being expelled from school (without an explanation), a possible theme occurs: are the children really innocent like the way they look or is is all a lie. Questions begin to arise: who are these children, why are they on this estates without parents, why was Miles expelled, and why did all their caretakers before the governess die?

Another gripping aspect of the story is whether or not if the ghosts are really there. The governess is the only one who sees the ghost and tries to tell everyone about her experience. The housekeeper (Mrs. Grose) believed that the governess was crazy or sick and was have visions rather than actual experiences. The governess would tell Mrs. Grose about the interactions she had with the ghost because she found Mrs. Gross as a companion. It is understandable from Mrs. Grose's shoes to think that the governess is delusional because she is describing dead people and how the ghost interacted with her. But defending the governess, the ghost could be real because how does she know what the old caretakers of the house look like without seeing them. The house also has crazy things happening within it that makes that idea of the ghost valid. The children are mysterious, the situation that caused her to be there is questionable, the estate is distant from the real world, and owner of the estate (the children's uncle) never wants to be asked questions are called for help regarding the estate or the children. There are a lot of unanswered questions which can make the ghost not false because of all the "creepy" things happening before the ghost sightings.

Even with the great story, it was tough for me to get through the text because of the old style English. The text is so thick with descriptions of the setting, characters, events, and so on that at times I got lost. A sentence in the book would take up an entire page at times, which was almost a repellent for me. Don't misunderstand, the text is written extremely well, but it is sometimes hard to understand at first glance. I would have to re-read a part of the text two or three times so that I understood what it said. For most individuals, that would not come up as a problem but if you have a hard time reading old English, I would second guess reading this story. But at the same time, I wouldn't let the old English turn you away. It is a gripping tale that will shock readers at different parts and allows the reader to ask questions and discover possible answers. Henry James leaves questions unanswered in the book which can be aggravating but enticing.

Gosh! What a read! Has anyone ever committed to the page more thrillingly, closely observed fiction So deft! So amusing! Such a deep understanding of the psychology of his characters! What a verbose, but wonderful prose stylist Henry James is. The story wasn't as interesting as the stylish, extravagantly brainy way it was told. Morris seemed unnecessarily bright for a cad. Morris is a beautiful schemer who, with the help of Catherine's father and her Aunt Lavinia, somehow manages to ruin Catherine's life by ruining her for other men. Catherine is the passive center of the story. I saw her as unsympathetically as her father does as a virtually charmless, inarticulate, clumsy, unadventurous, passive-agressive, stubborn child woman. All in all, its a unique, involving story with an ending that screams minor masterpiece.

This book begins with a retelling of a sinister tale from the past: a young woman in Victorian age England securing a job as governess to two orphan children. As she arrives at her new post, she feels uneasy even though all seems well and the future looks bright. Despite attempts at optimism, the presence of evil continues until the governess begins to experience regular and terrifying sightings. The horror rapidly grows when the reason behind these visitations is realized.
Although this book is short, its impact is nevertheless profound. The story's setting is surrealistic, leaving many factors open to speculation and debate. The end is at the same time chilling and mysterious. The enigmatic nature of the story adds to the mystery and terror and this book is sure not to disappoint any reader looking for a haunting and unforgettable story.

I don't know why the critics say the question this book presented is: Whether the apparitions were ghost or the governess' imagination? It surely doesn't seem to me as a product of an unsound mind. The governess didn't have any history connected with the so called apparitions and the last scene did show that the boy knew and could connect with 'the others' all along, not just a passive party who didn't know anything, like the housekeeper. Note that the way that he was the one who first pronounce the apparition's name, unlike when with the little girl, who was posed with the entity's name by the governess first.

While in the movie "The Others", which is said to be based on this book, the conclusion is made clear and the horror is deepened although there is a difference concerning guesses about the viewer's mad situation. In movie, the apparition had never show their face unless they were the same 'species' with the mother and the kids were not so much cunning sweet angels themselves which is a plus for the book.

As a warning, the words could confused a modern reader because there are so many long sentences with more than 2 clauses included. Luckily it is a short story.

The turn of the Screw sounded interesting to me because I have never read a horror story before. But, I definitely have watched horrific movies where children are sometimes the key element for the creepiness of the movie. Nevertheless, Henry James has contributed a masterpiece in this form of literature, The Turn of the Screw is one of great horror stories of all time. His book begins a little slow than expected, but the author keeps the readers involved as he keeps on adding to the content, the change in the scenes are so subtle that the story flows perfectly. One thing that the book should be praised for is its characters. James makes his plot complex and strong through the characteristics of the governess, the narrator. As we get to know the narrator and her point of view the book turns into an unexpected piece. After the governess confronts the ghosts, the story heads on as a mysterious plot more than a horror plot. At first, the governess is shown as a hopeless romantic towards the uncle, so this part of her character makes the readers think that she might be seeking attention and affection through her unknownly true exposure to ghosts. She wants to act like she has the power to defend everyone from the supernaturals. Her charcter can be dug deeper, but we are never going to the truth behind the Turn of the Screw.
Other charcters in the story play vital roles as well. In case of Miles, James proves us that even though he is a faded and quiet character he has the power to change the climax and remove the isolated mystery.Whereas, the ghost of Peter, either the governess's imagiation or real brings out the horror in the story. He doesn't bring the horror by his presence , but by his past. His character leads the other people to go insane and over protective, he plays with the minds to give the story a psychological thriller. Also, Flora and Ms. Grose brign out the typical known echo of a horrror story. They are the backdrop of the story, but their stillness gives the book a silent, but creepy feeling. It all starts with a 8 year old looking out the window and it develops into myths,maybe, and slowly into the governess's obsession of protecting the kids.
The story overall is a well written piece of literature. Even thought, written in 200 years ago the gothicness and its effect on the reader stays the same. The reader's today have read, watched, listened to different sorts of horror stories, but classic always stays classic.

The Turn of the Screw is a difficult book but if understood, it is thrilling and spooky. Henry James uses the narrator to taint the view of the reader but that is his key to creating his dark and ghostly world. The book begins right away and it does not take long before the excitement comes along. The excitement is purely within your imagination and it does not possess the same qualities of fear that recent books might have but it contains quite a bit if you put your mind to it. The darkness is created by JAmes' elaborate use of imagery. By using imagery, vision becomes an important aspect in the book. The imagery the author uses creates the atmosphere for his characters as well as the setting. The descriptions and imagery the author uses help the book along with satisfying the mind with the image of the place while creating the set for the next thriller and scene James wants to enrich the reader with.

Yes, the literary merit is profound throughout the book, and it is praised by many critics for having the literary merit but the book is truly a good one. It creates drama and fantasies of love but the presence of the ghosts take the happy and simple life of the main character and turn it into a nightmare. Through the narrator's eyes, the ghosts are as real as anything but the author implies that the main character might be, indeed, crazy. He ultimately leaves you to figure it out and to infer. Not only does he imply the debate between whether or not the main character is crazy, but there are many unsolved mysteries within the book. It continuously keeps you guessing as to what is going to happen next. Not many literary merit books do keep you captivated within the text but this book does. It feeds your wild imagination, despite the fact it doesn't have the traditional gore and unsubtly as most current horror books do now. Again, I emphasize that the imagination is the truly frightening thing here because without it, the book would have no excitement or enjoyability.

The author switches between reality and fiction throughout the entire book. This element gives the book its eerie quality because one can easily relate to the main character and associate real life characteristics to that character. The realistic part of the novel interests the reader but the fiction Henry JAmes adds to it completes the the eerie quality he tries so hardly to enforce. The book is realistic fiction but JAmes does an amazing job to imply that the ghost story he writes about is in fact real. Realism can be a powerful thing. Realism would appeal to the audience and readers. If the reader understands that something Jamess says is true, then the reader feels as if this could happen in the world today also. The appeal to the reader is important to the book because it engulfs the reader in JAmes' world. The reader may then understand the actions of the characters and the reasons behind their behaviors. Conclusively, the audience, captured within the text, understands the whole situation and is more entitled to the fear and mystery that the book holds.

The Turn of the Screw is an enjoyable book. When entering this reading, the reader just has to keep an open mind and understand this book was written in the late 1800s so you might not be used to the writing. Despite the fact the writing may be a little different, the plot is still developed wonderfully. This is one of the books that you really have to study; it is one that you can't just read half-heartedly and receive the same pleasure as other books. The reader has to go into the story and really focus on it. Without the whole mind foused on the book, the fear the author has intended would not affect as many people as he would have liked, after all, it is a ghost story. Also, you do not have to be analytical about every word of the book. One can sit down and enjoy it just as much as someone who has to read and analyze it. This is, no doubt, an enjoyable literary merit book.

Washington Square can be read as an upper-class fairy tale. Catherine Sloper has the tendency to see the people around her as if they were characters in a novel. Her father's education has been based on safeguarding Catherine from the vulgarity of "appearance". He is mostly concerned with her daughter not being overdressed. But how is she to learn not to overestimate her acquaintances? The influence of her aunt, a woman of powerful romantic imagination, misleads the young Catherine in her view and opinion of the young and dazzling Morris Townsend. Is he really madly in love with her? What has made this young gentleman worthy of receiving the benefit of every doubt in the Sloper household? Catherine seems to lose her sense of her rights in this relationship: "she had only a consciousness of immense and unexpected favours".

The problem is that Aunt Penniman delights in a drama, and the young Townsend has too high a sense of performance himself to disappoint her. A kiss and an embrace may no longer be a demonstration of affection, but a "sign". The poor bachelorette does not think too much about it, and will take whatever comes her way. Can this man be untrue to her when he says that she is irresistible? Is he in love or is he mercenary?

In the opinion of Dr Sloper, the young Townsend is out to seek his fortune through marriage. He has been reckless in his early youth, squandering his small fortune. But is it too despicable of him to seek to remake his life through matrimony? How are we to draw the moral profile of such a person? Are we capable of mercy, or only of Sloper's smug scorn of Catherine's need for love? It seems to be the case that the "interested" Morris may be altogether more likeable than Catherine's father.

When is the right moment to leave a partner whom one mistrusts? Isn't it better to suffer for a twelvemonth and then get over it than to commit oneself for life to someone unworthy of our cares, be it boyfriend or Dad? Is Morris really a selfish idler? On the occasion of her being disinherited, would Morris still care to marry an unattractive and impoverished girl?

Cosmopolitanism is in the novel a measure of young Catherine's incapacity to develop. After her father takes her for an artistic tour of Europe, she hasn't managed to grow into a "wiser" woman. But how is wisdom to be measured? She becomes withdrawn from her tactless and proud father. After she has been cruelly jilted, Dr Sloper is perverse enough to mock her having lost her chance to marry a charming young man. One is led to believe that Sloper had some Freudian attachment to his daughter, who had come to substitute his her beautiful mother in Sloper's heart. James's understanding of romantic and human emotions is deeply moving.

When I first began to read The Turn of the Screw I was very stubborn about thinking that this book was going to be exactly as all other books that are considered to be scary, which is not scary at all and just seem to be. However, from the moment I started to read this story it gave me the chills. It truly is a scary story and I was impressed by that because, unless a reader gets really in depth into the reading, books don't really get that emphasis to scare people and make a reader jump due to the writing of the author. I truly believe that no one but Henry James could have written more of a scary story than he did. With his use of tone and expression he truly seems that this once happened to him. James' writing was truly the best trait of this story
I love how the story kept making the reader decide whether or not it was a mystery or a scary story. The way the characters and setting where described so precisely that there was never a single detail that was missed. This type of precise writing is truly needed for the mysterious suspense that James was going for. Every part of the story, whether that it is a character, place, characteristic of a person place or thing, or a tiny detail, is explained with great complexity and gives the reader an addictive instinct to read what is next. The tone and intricate writing of the author helps give the book its identity and helps to give the reader the different themes that James wants them to put into consideration.
As the book progresses along, the book takes unexpected twists and turns, that create its meaning that can't be given away until the book is read. The mysterious tone of the book that is told to decide whether the story is meant to be a scary, mysterious, or both a scary and mysterious story truly gives the book an unforgettable experience. The complexity and descriptive meaning that the book has cause it to be such an addictive read. The plot only makes it better due to the writing. There are no complaints only great things to talk about. I would definitely suggest this as a great read to anyone.

This book is clearly a classic, but as many of the reviews reflect, it is not for every audience. Many of the reviewers here are in high school...when I went to high school I had several friends who read this book and were equally unimpressed with it. I read it in my late twenties and was blown away with the combination of elaborate language, complex psychological thrills, and genuine scares. The book must have been quite shocking to its initial audience, and within this context, it still is a shocker. Read this book and focus on the psychological aspects, and you'll likely have a good time. Incidentally, the book was made into a brilliant movie, "The Innocents," starring Deborah Kerr.

I suppose James succeeded in writing parts of the story that were eerie, but I thought the characters were absolutely brutal. I genuinely didn't care one iota what happened to them. I also rarely enjoy the "story within a story" format. Just a pretty bland read.

In short-story form, James writes a gruesome and psychologically challenging tale that involves the reader in a myriad of conflicting emotions and ideas. The book relates the story of a tutor living in a house in the country with the mission of overseeing the education and development of two young children. During her early days there, she sees a man, who she is later informed is dead. After much debate between whether to respect the proprieties of the house or pry into the affairs of the household, she eventually learns the identity of the ghost and his female ghost companion. What unfolds is a tale that intrigues the imagination and frightens the reader through confusion. How can they be ghost? Do the children see them? Do the children respond to them? How do we get rid of them? What do they want? As the tutor strives to protect the children, she weaves a path of mental deception for herself and her ally, which eventually, in the final pages, results in a moment of truth and triumph at the greatest of costs.

I brought a considerable amount of bias to this story; after all, it has been hailed as the greatest ghost story ever written by so many literary critics, and it is difficult to set aside such prophesies of adulation.

I wasn't terribly disappointed.

Henry James has a style of writing that doesn't appeal to everyone. Certainly not to people expecting fast paced thrillers written by Dan Brown, or horror glock by Stephen King. His style is slow, psychological, in some places almost operatic. But there were strong points and weak points, and those are clearly delineated here. The introduction is fabulously alive and sparkles with tension, as do all of the sequences where characters interact with each other. When we are left alone in the mind of the governess, who is either a prescient seer or a hopeless neurotic, the immediacy of the writing slows considerably.

Unfortunately, we are in the mind of the governess for the majority of the story.

Still, it's a fascinating tale, rife with subtlety and passion, and considerable suspense. What did the young master do at school that caused him to be sent home, when he appears to be such a perfect angel? What is the nature of the apparitions the governess sees? What affect, if any, do these apparitions have on the two children in her care?

The ending itself is ingenious, and quite a shock. It answers many questions, but leaves just as many unanswered. You'll need to connect the dots yourselves, for James doesn't give much away.

"Everyone likes Washington Square. Even the denigerators of Henry James." This short novel combines the deeply insightful character analysis almost exclusive to Henry James, without all of his often difficult and tiresome prose style. The plot seems simple enough: Catherine, our strikingly three-dimensional protagonist, is faced with a difficult decision. Should she follow the advice of her sentimental aunt and marry Morris, the poor, jobless, seemingly benevolent lover? Or should she listen to her cold, intellectual father, to whom she is completely devoted, and examine Morris' admittedly questionable motives for wanting to marry Catherine, an heiress? James' depth of analysis of his characters psychology is unparalleled throughout American literature, and this too-often forgotten classic should appeal to most of us. "Washington Square" is one of James' earlier works, but it does not lack the brilliant psychological observations and social critique of his later novels. However, for those who find his sometimes laborious and complex prose style a bit tiring, "Washington Square" is a breath of fresh air. I recomend this book to anyone who enjoys American literature.

Henry James's novel looks almost alarmingly simple: A young woman must choose between the love of a father and the love of a young man. Surely, the notion is too slender to sustain a whole book. How can he pull it off? Yet James manages a number of surprises. The simplicity is a ruse. Chief among the surprises is the character of Catherine Sloper, James's protagonist. James immediately tells us she is stupid. How dare he? Who wants to read about such a creature? Perhaps because readers naturally empathize with the defenseless, our sympathies sweep to her; no one should deserve the opprobrium of this narrator. And we are not wrong. Catherine is simple, but she is gifted with dignity, honesty, and the ability to endure. Her position is morally superior, even if her father is correct; her paramour is a bounty hunter, and nothing more. Yet that is among the other surprises in store, since James uses his omniscient narrator selectively, keeping Townsend's heart obscured for nearly 3/4ths of the book. The story still fascinates us, because it is essentially about money. Gaining wealth and status we have not earned is an American obsession. Perhaps it is the American dream. And while eschewing it will not make us happy--there is no happiness in Washington Square, only the kind of humor that would be cruel if it were not so funny--it will finally allow us to maintain our dignity "for life, as it were."

The Turn of the Screw is a gripping piece of work filled with terror and unanswered questions. The horror and paranormal apparitions keeps all readers on the edge of their seats. It lacks a conclusion, but that adds to the need of the reader to use their imagination. Are the children being deceitful and the governess telling the truth, or do the children truely do not see the apparitions and this is just a story of a disturbed governess? What really happened to Miles? Are Mr. Quint and Miss Jessel trying to harm the children, or are they there to protect the children from an evil worse than themselves? This novella is packed with terror and is a must-read for all sorts of readers.

"Washington Square", published in 1880, is not, and will not be, regarded as Henry James's best novel -- the honor would go to "The Portrait of a Lady" or much later works like "The Wings of the Dove" -- but this short but richly woven book deserve our attention. The book is always readable and intriguing while it does not fail to deliver the amazingly realistic characters living in New York City of the 19th century. Certainly, this is the best place for any beginners of James to start.
The book starts with an introduction of a New York physician Dr. Sloper and his only daughter Catherine. While the doctor gained respectable position among the patients, he loses his wife suddenly after the birth of Catherine, who grows up to be a not particularly clever nor beautiful girl. Catherine, painfully shy, becomes a dutiful, but perhaps dull, daughter, the kind of a girl whose awkward behaviors her father approves always with a little detached attitude.
Then, comes a good-looking man Morris Townsend, who has no money but gives a word of "gentleman." But what does that mean when Doctor suspects this is just another fortune hunter, who is seeking for the money Catherine is to inherit after his death? Still, Doctor is half amused, even entertained, by this unexpected visitor who now seems to have gained the love of his daughter. But he didn't expect that Catherine would show surprising obstinate attitude in spite of his threat of disinheriting her.
The book is written, as a whole, with a very tragic note, but as you read on, you will find that, just like Jane Austen's narrator, "Washington Square" has an amusing aspect of comedy at first. The meddling widow Mrs. Penniman, whose wild imagination is one of her weakness, is a good example. She runs around between Morris and Catherine, only to annoy both of them. Henry James's touch when he treats these characters, however, sounds more incisive and even colder than Jane Austen's, if not totally cruel -- and the cruelty is gradually obvious as the plot unfolds.
Our main concern is about Catherine. The story is in itself trite and insignificant (James heard the original episode which the book is based on, in England from actress Fanny Kemble, and the brief note remains), but it is the growth (or change) of the apparently insipid heroine, and the interations between her and other characters (or between those other characters) that always impress us greatly. James's pen ruthlessly cuts into the hearts of those characters, and the intense, skillfully-constructed dialogue which show what is going on in the characters would instantly grip the readers' mind.
Some readers might champion more condensed prose of "The Golden Bowl", deeming "Washington Square" as too lightweight. In a sense, it is, I admit; the novel is not long, and the syntax is very easy to understand (for James, I mean). Still, the book is never dull, always fast-paced (for James, again), and the touching fate of the heroine Catherine is not a thing to be missed.
The novel is turned into films and they are also great, I must add. William Wyler's version is a masterpiece, with Olivia de Havilland/Montgomery Clift/Ralph Richardson trio, but more recent production made in 1997 is also good.

One hundred years ago the scariest work of horror fiction was written; The Turn of the Screw. Now a century old, this masterpiece is still as creepy and horrific to modern readers as it was to those long ago. Is it a ghost story? A window into the disturbed mind of a nurotic and repressed young woman? A not-so veiled allegory of the abuses, namely sexual, of children? James' rambling, polite, hysterical and prim prose seethes with undertones of violence and aberrant sexuality. After reading this book, you will spend the next week looking over your shoulder; now I understand what "spine-tingling" and "blood-curdling" mean. This book gave me the shivers, literally.

The Kindle Signet THE TURN OF THE SCREW AND OTHER SHORT NOVELS contains:

An International Episode

Daisy Miller

The Aspern Papers

The Altar of the Dead

The Turn of the Screw

The Beast in the Jungle

Its introduction by Fred Kaplan is a little remote, and contains spoilers. The Bantam Classics TURN OF THE SCREW with other stories has what I think is a better selection, including WASHINGTON SQUARE.

Meanwhile the near-free COMPLETE HENRY JAMES, a purely ebook collection, has all these selections and many major novels as well. Go with Bantam if you want a good selection of top nouvelles and short novels. Go with COMPLETE if you want a lot of Henry James and can make your own choices about what's good.

Although it is a glimpse into the personal mind more than a horror story and causes the reader to question the sanity of the source of the information, I found it to be uninteresting. Maybe that was unique back then, but not anymore. It also deals with suggestions of taboo subjects such as homosexuality and pedophiles, but only suggestions. I imagine that was unique in its time too. I just found that where some books that leave things unresolved or ambiguous (Calling of Lot 49, for instance) are all the better for it, this one just leaves me feeling that it just didn't work here. I'm not sure why this particular book remains after all these years. That said, it isn't horrible. Just average.

Frankenstein by Mary Shelly in my opinion is a very well written novel. It is a gothic novel that almost anyone can enjoy, it has a very good blend of science and religion mixed together as well as romance and horror.
I particularly enjoyed reading this novel, because although it was written in 1816, some of what is contained within the novel can be related to certain issues going on today. Playing God and creating life greatly relates to the issue of cloning or even stem cell research that we have going on today.
Mary Shelly was born Aug 30, 1797 and passed away at the age of 54 on Feb 1, 1851. She was a short story author and well writing many books The Last Man, Mathilda, Valperga and Ladore just to name a few, she was most famous for her Gothic novel Frankenstein which she wrote in 1816 at the age of only 19 and was later published in 1818.
The story was written to take place in the 1700s. It is about a scientist Dr. Frankenstein, who in the scheme of things, decides that he is going to play God and try to create a living being using multiple body parts that he has acquired from random corpses and sowing them together. His creation comes to life and turns out not to be what Frankenstein himself had envisioned it to be, instead it is a grotesque being and ultimately Dr. Frankenstein is disgusted with and abandons the creature. Frankenstein's creation is forced to live a life of solitude being shunned for his utterly grotesque from by the town's people and by Dr. Frankenstein's refusal to make him a mate.
It is a sad tale of seclusion, abandonment, murder and betrayal.

"If the child gives the effect another turn of the screw, what do you say to two children-?" (pg.3)
Written in 1898, Henry James wrote a short gothic novella called the Turn of the Screw that became one of the most influential books of the nineteenth century in England. James created a story that still lives on in the literature world today as a brilliant masterpiece. I found this particular novel to be gripping and gruesome in its own twisted way by James' use of ghosts to represent the evil in people and particularly in children. I would recommend this novel to anyone who is interested in dark, corrupt stories. The reoccurring theme of beauty versus evil is especially appealing to readers because it gives the reader a topic that anyone can relate and connect to.
Throughout the Turn of the Screw, there are multiple references between physical appearance and ethical morality. There is within human nature to have a fascination with the evil that beauty could conceal. People are continuously tantalized by the prospect that someone or something seemingly pure and innocent could very actually be evil underneath, as there is a thrill that comes from discovering someone who is physically lovely is also dangerous. The "sexy but dangerous" factor that most men are attracted to, I feel, also pertains to the literature world. James' novel is gothic story that is dangerous but extremely inviting and attractive to the reader. James plays on the traditional expectation that the beautiful are also good and contrasts it with the thrill that good and evil can coincide within the same realm. This perplexing idea is captivating and turns the mind inside out as you read. I would strongly suggest this book to anyone and everyone!

The Turn of the Screw was a difficult but creepy book. If you like books that give you a challenge, this is the book for you. Since it was written in the 1800's, the way of the writing is difficult to comprehend if you aren't used to reading these types of books. I was asked to pick a book that was written in the 1800's for my AP literature class and I heard that this was a pretty good horror book. Little did I know that it was going to be a pretty challenging read.

Other than it being a challenging book to read, once you get past the understanding part, it's a really good, creepy book. There aren't many scary parts, but the parts that are scary really get under your skin. I even got the chills during one part.
I can see why this book is still a classic, well if you're into old books.

I would recommend this book to anyone who is looking for a chilling book that makes you wonder what is going to happen next. Just remember that his book is a difficult read and will definitely make you think and wonder about a few things that were never really clarified in the end.

This book is rich with sexual connotations, and because of its ambigious language, it may be interpreted in a variety of ways. The governess is attracted to the master, but in his absence, her emotions are directed towards the children, Mrs Gross, and the ghosts. The governess longs to write the master but has been forbidden. She once kisses Miles upon the lips and then notes his lack of objection. She also is kissed by Mrs Gross, which she remarks to be "sisterly love," and she is obsessed with the relationship between Quint and Jessel, and more specifically, the spirits and the children. It is implied that Quint gave Miles sexual knowledge, which he passed on to "those he liked" and thus was dismissed from school. The book is also ripe with phallic symbols, like Quint's appearance on the tower, Quint standing "erect" and being "not a gentleman," and Flora making a boat near the pond. The reality of the ghosts, as the above views on sexuality, are debated often amongst readers. While no one other than the governess admits to seeing the ghosts, it's difficult to explain how she was able to describe them in such detail -- one possibility is that Mrs Gross lies in her attraction to the governess, while another is that the ghosts are real. Enjoy the book, but don't expect to formulate any definite solutions to these problems, for this book is criticized more than any other.
I have a terrible habit, which you might share -- I buy Dover Thrift books not because they're particularly helpful but because they cost only a buck. This habit, however, leads to problems with James, for his style is laconic and difficult to digest. Thus, if you have the money, then purchase an edition of this book that is edited and easier to read. The only advantage to the Dover Thrift version is that it's unabridged, giving one the opportunity to read the original text.

I rated this James work a 4 based upon recent completion of "The Portrait of a Lady" which I hold as a 5. Disturbingly good was the impression I have of the novel. I was intensely disturbed by the characterization of a lovely women as less than smart, and less than fair in appearance. The description of Catherine, none the lacking due to Jame's gift of portraiture, made an impression on me. She became depicted in my mind's eye not as a homely dolt as her father chose to describe her, but instead a woman worthy of many, and owner of a beauty that many would consider cozy and warm. Her growth from a child to a woman of stature, and stolid grace only enhanced her beauty to me as the book progressed to it's end. She became the embodiment of an independent, not unlike Isabelle Archer in "The Portrait of a Lady." Isabelle Archer, in seeking the recapture of her independence could only have done better by knowing and reproducing the manner in which Catherine Sloper gained her's. Independence in both characters was ultimately pure, and gained through their own hands, but Catherine's if possible, was enhanced simply because she lacked the millstone of a husband during her quest for true unadultrated independent freedom of character.

"The more enlightened our houses are, the more their walls ooze ghosts." ~Italo Calvino

I have over 300 books that are considered "classics" on my to-read list. I am familiar with the plots of some of the most famous classics that I haven't read; however, in most of them I couldn't even tell you the plot or theme of the book. I was surprised to find out that The Turn of the Screw is actually a ghost story. Who knew?

I wanted a short quick classic book to read before my next book club book and so I grabbed one of the shortest on my list coming in at just over 100 pages. It was anything but a quick read for me. The biggest problem I have is that I typically read books late at night and usually I can read for an hour or two. For a week straight I found myself reading five pages and falling asleep. It was a struggle. The writing is very good but he is very descriptive almost to a fault in my opinion.

The book is about a young governess who is hired by a man who really has no desire to raise his niece and nephew after their parents have died. She is really enamored with the little boy and girl and thinks that they are near perfect. However, you can tell right away that something is off with these kids in a Children of the Corn sort of way. The governess starts seeing the ghosts of two people that worked there in the past that had been tragically killed. She believes that the children sees them as well and communicates with them ... but do they?

James leaves the ending very ambiguous and it can be interepreted many ways. Usually I don't like an openended ending; however, in this case I think it worked well. The book picks up in the final 30 pages; however, I can't recommend it because the first 60-70 pages were a bear.

I had never read this Henry James story, and I have to admit that I found it to be very disturbing, which I'm sure is the effect he intended to project. Well, he succeeded magnificently, at least with me anyway.

..Chutiporn Wanthaisong

I thing this story is relatively good. It has a good point about a good wish of parents that we should obey them. The story has interesting written style and makes me want to follow till the end. However,it has a weak point the end is predicable.

Dr Austin Sloper was a successful doctor. He lived in New York with one daughter and one sister. His daughter,Catherine was a simple girl,well built,well behave and polite,but she was just dull.

When Doctor Sloper moved his family to Washington square,there was a handsome young man,Morris Townsend,come to court Catherine despite no one had admired her before. Mrs Penniman,who was Catherine's foolish aunt,was so glad. But Doc Sloper does not think in that way because when he died,Catherine will inherit a fortune of 30000 dollars a year. Then,he wondered why a charming and cleaver man was admired his daughter,and he told Catherine that she could not marry with no permission form him.Catherine is deeply sorry for his father. However,Mrs Penniman absolutely tried to help Catherine bot one day Catherine did not want to see Mr Townsend anymore.

These are two of James's most haunting stories. It is amazing how he uses his mastery of narrative technique to unsettle the reader. It is never clear in the "Turn of the Screw" whether the ghosts actually exist or whether the narrator herself is deluded. Similarly, in "The Aspern Papers" the narrator seems to be eminently reasonable and civilized, but his actions are anything but. This story, in its quiet, "boring" fashion, throws a very disturbing light on literary biographers. In fact, this is one of James's trademarks, the ability to probe the dark side of refined, genteel people.

Henry James wrote The Turn of the Screw in 1897. It is a story about a young woman who takes a job as governess for a rich uncle. She stays in a big mansion known as Bly. During her stay, she sees two ghosts, and believes they are after the two children she is watching over, Miles and Flora. Overall the book did not do much for me. I spent a lot of time reading and re-reading James's convoluted sentences, which killed the overall feeling of suspense that I would otherwise have, had James written more clearly. Also, the plot was very confusing. This is expected, especially in a ghost story, but is overdone in The Turn of the Screw. I know this was partly James's intent, but the level of vagueness was too much in my opinion, and it got old. Since the reading was so tedious and confusing, the plot also suffered. I felt that if the writing were more straightforward, I might have been more entertained with the plot. However the plot was boring and seemed to drag on and on, probably due to the long sentences and excessive commentary by the governess. Perhaps if one were into literary debate and into books that are difficult to read, one would enjoy this book much more. However I am not one of those types. While The Turn of the Screw is a popular book in the eye of classic literature, it did not much entertain me.

A story told over a hundred years ago, and still sparking serious debate over its intention? Henry James must be proud. Now I like clear writing even more than the next fellow, but I find I really like the ambiguity and startling turns that both the dialogue and the plot take in Henry James's stories. The answers to the simplest questions put to a character always elicit an unexpected response. This makes it tough on a reader, who lazily expects direct, routine answers. It's unsettling and challenging to understand what these characters say, and mean, by their responses.
So, I think that the charm of Henry James is that the reader is asked to use his own imagination in interplay with the writing. It's a puzzle, and the more imagination one brings, the more fascinating the characters. You'll note how little physical description James uses for a character like Mrs. Grose, allowing the reader's imagination to fill in the blanks.
Each generation sees something different in the story. Originally viewed as a ghost story, it was later reviewed to be a Freudian tale, told by an unreliable narrator. Sexual overtones affected the narrative of the governess, making the reader question what she saw, and what she says others saw. This ambigous reality reached not only to perception of the ghosts, but of the actions and motives of the children.
However, I was struck as a 21st Century reader by the awful plight of Miles, the ten-year-old boy asked not to return to school for reasons the school never explains. It is only in the last chapter, when Miles and the governess are alone together, where the governess uses language that seems to promise carnal pleasure to Miles, that the most startling aspect of Miles character is revealed. Abruptly asked whether he was discharged accused of stealing, he instead admits to having told things to "those few he liked." They in turn told others they liked, and it eventually reached the head master. This beautiful, sensitive, intelligent boy was trapped and mortified by the things he said to the few he liked, and only reluctantly reveals this to the Governess. It is left to the reader's imagination what Miles may have said, but given Henry James's own sexuality, much may be supposed.
Then the Governess alerts Miles to the ghost that she has been seeing during their conversation, and she thinks, has been protecting Miles from. He supposes she means the prior governess, who had been "haunting" his younger sister. Instead, in horror, he hears that she means deceased Peter Quint, an unsavory manservant with a penchant for wearing his master's clothes and an interest in the children. Quint's death was unexplained but violent one night as he was coming from town. Can it be that he and Miles had a relationship that causes Miles to be so ashamed and fearful that he dies rather than face his tormentor? It is ambiguous, but the possibility, so real to the reader, does not seem to occur to the governess, who in her zeal to protect Miles, has pushed him to confront the one horror that he could not survive, in order to save him from the ghost she alone sees.
Great story, requiring careful attention, but the ideas have inspired arguments among generations of readers.

When I first read this book, I was taken aback by the wording. It's in a very different style than modern English, and uses commas and interjections a lot - to the point that it's hard to keep track of the entire sentence sometimes. That said, I think if you survive the first few pages, you'll be fine reading the rest. Once you get to that point, this book is a real treat. I don't know that I'd call this a horror story, so much as a straightforward depiction of the psychological horror faced by a governess responsible for two children. It does make you think, and it will make you wonder about the narrator's credibility. Another reviewer mentioned that such ambiguity doesn't make a classic. I agree, but I also really enjoyed the book, and would recommend it to others who are above average in their English reading skills.

I love the writing of Henry James, but it can be dense and difficult to navigate. I recommend Washington Square as a good introduction to his work. The book is quite short, and the writing is fairly straight forward, but still complex and beautiful. The story is a classic and has been retold in several movies, including the brilliant "The Heiress." The theme of a person with inner beauty, but who is physically unappealing and awkward being unappreciated by his/her parents and society is certainly relevant, and the novel's herione remains contemporary. If you like this novel, then move on and sample some of James' more difficult work.

james starts his story out in a classic setting of people telling stories around a fire--no they aren't camping. the story is told in writing by a governess who is hired to teach and care for two children at bly, a country estate. the ghost story evolves when she begins to see apparitions that are thought to be the prior governess and her lover, a servant on the estate.
the curious part of the tale is the unanswered question of whether these are really ghosts trying to take control of the children, or simply figments of a deranged mind. the question is not really raised to the reader until near the end of the book and is intentionally left hanging. the debate rages on even today!
as a ghost story goes, this one is pretty good. the suspense rises with each new sighting and "turn" of the children. the ending, though ambiguous, leaves the reader with much to think about and wonder.
the real shortcoming here is the writing. james is very confusing, rambling and obtuse. it is by no means poetic as it is harsh to the ear. no one writes this way, much less talks. it really doesn't add to the "mystery" through subtle nuance. it is quit simply hard to read and understand. the ghost story should be quick and easy to follow so that suspense can build up rapidly. when you have to go back and reread sentences to better understand what was said, the suspense dies.
an interesting, but frustrating read.

I admit to disliking the ambiguity of this well-written ghost story. Simply put, there is NO payoff. No explanation of what is really happening. As a writer, if I'd written such a story I'd feel like I hadn't fulfilled my audience by the end of the tale.

Still, it made James another notch in the literary world and has opened pools of discussion and analysis of the story and the characters for decades now.

I have never been able to understand where the governess/narrator ended up dubbed a sexual hysteric and that the apparitions in the story are hallucinations. It is too coincidential to accept that: 1)Governess is insane AND 2) insane Governess manages to hallucinate images of people perfectly matching the likenesses of the dead servants.

I find it more credible to believe Governess was mentally unstable BUT also a precognitive psychic (which might very well explain her instability.) Toss in a good strong dose of religious fanaticism and Victorian prudery and conditions are ripe for haunting.

Despite her frequent sightings of the ghosts, Governess never witnesses either spirit doing anything harmful or sinister to anybody. Any harmful intention is implicit in Governess's mind. True, the housekeeper suggests social impropriety between the children and the deceased servants, but her plaint is more related to class issues than moral corruption.

The story is almost a religious allegory. Governess's efforts to protect the children are similar to old European Christians drowning an accused witch to "prove" the person's innocence.

As a horror tale all the elements to promote genuine terror are present.

The first element to clear up is the date of publication. Henry James could not at that time when he wrote this strongly anti-gay, as we would say today, novella using ghosts to create tension ignore Oscar Wilde’s Ghost of Canterville in which Oscar Wilde in 1887 makes fun of Americans who believe in ghosts so much that they can shoot peas with peashooters at them, up to the final peace agreement the Americans negotiate with that ghost. Henry James takes quite a serious approach towards the two ghosts of his story, meaning it is not any device to frighten the readers, but a dramatic element in the story without which it does not work.

He could not either ignore the situation in England, where he situates the action, at the time since Oscar Wilde was sentenced to a two year prison term for his gay sexuality with young men if not teenagers. Note at the time the age was not at stake, only the orientation. The sentence was implemented from 1895 to 1897. Then Oscar Wilde moved to Paris where he died in 1900. Since Henry James situates his story in England he had to take into account the real paranoia about any gay orientation, though if Oscar Wilde had not “seduced” (and that seduction was long lasting for the “ victim”) the son of a Lord, himself to become a Lord, he might very well have gone through without even a trial or a fine. That conception of society divided into upper tiers that have to remain cut off from any intimate relation with all other middle or lower social tiers is absolutely dominant at the time in England. And we must keep in mind the subject was so pregnant that it will be the core of D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover (1928, censored in England up to 1960), and it was a core element in the recent TV series Downton Abbey, whose action is situated in the 1910s and 1920s. Henry James’ novella can only be understood in his time within that social and sexual context.

But in the 21st century a critic has to be more creative, though some are sticking to the old approach.

This old approach only takes into account two basic interpretations with a mongrelized third one. The first one is that the two ghosts, Quint and Miss Jessel, are real and we have a real ghost story that obviously has not read Oscar Wilde, but today that kind of story does not work, except for teenagers (and young ones at that) on television. The second interpretation is that the governess (who does not have a name, and that cannot be gratuitous) suffers from hallucinations and is misled by her own possessive and protective, we could say extreme maternal, desires. The third interpretation is a little bit of each of the first two because Henry James tries to be non-committed on the dual choice. But one thing is sure for all such critics: the two ghosts tried to sexually possess, and might even have succeeded, at least in the case of the boy and Quint, the two children who are at the time of these events seven for the girl and nine for the boy. The story told by the new governess takes place when they are respectively eight and ten. I personally have not found one element that is clear about Flora or Miles having intercourse of any type with Miss Jessel and Quint

I would like to insist here on what is a shortcoming of the novella itself, the fact that Henry James does not really examine and scrutinize the psychological situation of the two kids, and then I will try to explore a modern interpretation of the anonymous governess.

The shortcoming is why and how the two kids end up in an isolated country mansion of an upper class London man who is a bachelor and the uncle of the kids. This story that is underused is essential to evaluate the children.

They lost their parents in India two years ago when the new governess arrives. They were uprooted from India then and entrusted to their upper class uncle in London who is a bachelor and uses the services of a valet who apparently wears some clothes of his master, which is frowned upon by the new governess when she is told but perfectly tolerated by the master. This proves nothing as for sexual orientation, but it does show something about the social orientation of this uncle, though his not wanting the two kids in his London home seems to show he does not want to be bothered by them and/or he wants to protect them from his own life style which is not specified in orientation, sexual or social likewise. So after losing their parents and being uprooted from India the are uprooted from their uncle’s London home and sent to live with quite a few servants in a countryside mansion of their uncle’s, a mansion that is composite: old sections from a several century old structure that looks medieval (crenellated towers) and a more modern structure in-between, meaning from the 19th century, or maybe the end of the 18th century.

This second uprooting sets the kids under the responsibility of two people, with servants around, including a housekeeper: a governess, Miss Jessel, and the uncle’s valet, Quint. Miss Jessel is responsible for the education of the kids and particularly of the young girl, whereas Quint is responsible for the upbringing of the young boy. The novella insinuates that the two kids developed very intimate (in time, which is the only parameter that is specified) relations, Miss Jessel with the girl Flora, and Quint with the boy Miles, often referred to as Mr. Miles. The intimate relations can easily be explained by the trauma of the loss of the parents and the double trauma of the double uprooting. There is absolutely no element that implies this intimacy is sexual, hence pedophile.

But for a reason that is called a scandal, with once again no specification, Miss Jessel has to go home, that is to say she is fired. There is some innuendo about the scandal but we cannot say if Miss Jessel, a governess who has to be young and pure, hence unmarried and virginal, did something unacceptable with Quint or anyone else. The novella seems to imply she did not do anything with the kids and at the end Miles clearly says he did not do anything bad with her. So we have to come to the idea she had a relation with Quint. And she dies soon after leaving for a cause we are not told. Soon after, Quint dies accidentally though without any detail. The two kids find themselves in another traumatic situation and Flora is temporarily taken care of by Mrs. Grose, the Housekeeper, who must be married but at the same time no husband is attributed to her, and Miles is sent to a boarding school. This situation is of course another trauma for the two kids who are separated and the boy sent to a boarding school which is not the best place for a traumatized child. No surprise when we learn at the end that he told things (which are not specified) to some of his “friends” there and these friends told these things to others including the teaching personnel, which explains the fact Miles is sent back home for the summer but with a letter telling his guardian he will not be taken again in the Fall.

What is missing here is the PTSS or PTSD that has to have developed in the two kids. Their Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome or Disorder must have been extremely high due to the successive traumas and uprootings they experienced at a very young age: between 6 and 8 for Flora and 8 and 10 for Miles. In fact it is this PTSS/D that could explain the final episodes of Flora refusing to see the governess again after a final ghost event with Miss Jessel, and then the death of Miles after another and final ghost event with Quint. The two kids are literally haunted by these ghosts that are only seen by the governess and that she imposes onto them in what must be considered as psychological if not even psychiatric torture: bringing up the last two people with whom they had some intimate equilibrium, hence maybe peace in their traumatic situations. And this governess is more than simply agitating the ghosts: she tries to force the kids, Flora first and Quint second, to admit they had a “bad” relation with the two ghosts when they were alive, which amounts to depriving the children of the recollection they may have kept of the two people who have been taken away by death after obscure circumstances, which had to reactivate the death of their own parents. The governess does not understand that and yet Henry James does not exploit it, so that the final position of Flora rejecting the governess and the final death of Miles remain unexplained. Miles does not die of fear, but he dies because that is the only way the governess leaves him to keep in contact with the last man he has had some intimate and balanced, maybe happy, relation with.

But the novella must be interpreted by critics with modern resources.

Henry James is telling the story in which a male character is bringing up the notebook of the nameless governess in which she tells what happened to her when in charge of Flora and Miles in the countryside mansion in Bly. In other words Henry James provides us with a personal diary by a character he invents and constructs but he constructs her only with her own words which have to be analyzed psychologically, socially and even from a non-clinical psychiatric point of view. This anonymous governess speaking in the first person is suffering of an extremely serious psychiatric disorder that has to be identified from what she says herself. Everything being fiction told by Henry James.

Her extremely strict and violent opposition to any sexual relation between Flora and Miss Jessel or between Miles and Quint, motivated both sexually and socially, reveals on her side a sexual and social heritage that is not dealt with except with a couple of allusion to her own brothers and sisters that lead nowhere.

The fact that she is a lot more motivated in her hostility by Miles and Quint than by Flora and Miss Jessel, shows she develops a sort of jealousy that would be purely pedagogical if equal on the two kids, but that is a lot more intricate and intimate since it is essentially directed towards the boy. She takes a stronger anti-gay position with Miles than with Flora. I say anti-gay and not anti-pedophile because she insists on the social dimension of the crime: Quint is behaving towards Miles not as a subservient servant but as something like an equal who can even wear his own master’s clothes, Miles’ uncle’s clothes. But what reveals the very obscure motivations of the governess is first the strong protective attitude: as such she is maternal. But second it is excessively physical and cuddling, hugging, embracing and kissing, including when Miles is in bed and she is sitting on his bed are impulsive, vast in time and repetitive. We are beyond anything that is normal for an adult woman and a ten year old boy who clearly asks her to leave him alone. She is obviously in love with the child and her desire is intimate though in her consciousness not sexual, but she does not see that all the hugging, embracing, cuddling, kissing, etc., is sexual and cannot be anything but sexual for a ten year old boy who must be starting to feel some desires and has spend one term in a boarding school with other boys and who longs for going back to be with boys because he wants to be a man. He uses this argument to build some distance with the governess who does not seem to understand. In other words her attitude is sexually motivated, even if unconsciously for the governess, is sexually received and interpreted and this time not unconsciously at all for Miles though it is for the governess, and is experienced as a frustration at least, in fact a castration, and this is conscious for Miles though unconscious for the governess.

But why does she condemn that intimacy with Quint and not with herself? The rejection of such gay relationship is clearly a way for her to hide and keep under control her own impulses. The rejection is typical of her time. It is also a way to cathartically sublimate and desexualize her own impulses. But this catharsis should also bring her to the point where she should step back and let Miles be, and obviously it does not work like that, which means her impulses are deeply rooted in her unconscious and her impulses are both pedophile and incestuous since she assumes the protective maternal stance of a quasi-mother, of a mother substitute in a situation of total absence of the real mother.

If then we associate the PTSS/D of the children to this falsely cathartic incestuous and pedophile impulse of the governess along with her extreme and excessive rejection of any gay or social mixing for the children we have to come to the conclusion that this attitude is completely castrating for Miles to the point he can only think of one escape to rejoin the last man with whom he had a relation, Quint. Since Quint is dead, though he does not see his ghost, he has to die to be with him again. Then the very end is clear when Miles “admits” his relation with Quint. Under duress more than simple pressure Miles admits he is seeing a vision of someone. The governess imagine it is a “she,” thinking of Miss Jessel. Miles answer curtly: “It’s he?”

At this moment the governess becomes a torturer that only works (and that was her main characteristic all along) on what she conjures up from what she considers as signs though they are never confirmed by real words from anyone. Here is that imperial attitude:

“I was so determined to have all my proof that I flashed into ice to challenge him. “Whom do you mean by ‘he’?”

And Miles’ answer is not an answer to her but to himself, to the vision he has in his mind of the only possibility he has to escape that dragon of a governess:

“Peter Quint—you devil!”

And of course she does not understand he is talking to Quint in his mind, not the ghost she sees at this moment, but the real memory of the intimacy he had with Squint, an intimacy that implies no sexual relation, but only a friendly and socially uneven but accepted relation. She at once sees meaning where there is nothing:

“His face gave again, round the room, its convulsed supplication. “Where?” [says Miles of course]

And her conclusion is fatal, lethal. It is the last thread she cuts. She finally lets him go to Quint, but not the ghost, though she does not know.

“They are in my ears still, his supreme surrender of the name and his tribute to my devotion.”

And yet this harpy of a woman has to push even further:

“What does he matter now, my own?—what will he ever matter? I have you,” I launched at the beast, “but he has lost you for ever!” Then, for the demonstration of my work, “There, there!” I said to Miles.”

For her the ghost is real and can be positioned in real space, the competition is won and she strikes the last two blows to Miles.

In other words her deranged sexual and emotional impulses lead her to a crime, a murder, she commits with only words and she triumphs just before discovering her murder because she thinks she has Miles to herself forever.

So, to conclude, this ghost story has little to do with ghosts being real or hallucinations. It is a deep story about a fully repressed and perverted woman who is so haunted by her own sexual impulses which she tries to control by her absolute rejection of anything sexual that she invents ghosts and fantasized relations between the children she is supposed to take care of and the ghosts she imagines. This enters in conflict with the PTSS/D of the children, though insufficiently developed by Henry James, so that Flora rejects her totally and Miles dies to escape the mental castrating prison in which she tries to lock him up.

We can hardly reproach Henry James with not knowing what we know today but we definitely have to reproach critics with not going beyond the manipulation Henry James works on us. Think for example of the name of the valet, Quint, meaning “five.” Thus Quint is the pentacle, the devil in simple symbols and then the last words addressed to Quint by Miles are “you devil!” This name then becomes friendly from Miles who is going to stop his heart to rejoin Quint. But what a manipulation in which the nameless governess falls head first! Apparently many critics have fallen into it too. I am of course here only speaking of what has been written on Henry James’ novella that was adapted to the cinema, television, ballet and the opera, not to speak of theater.

What surprises me most is why critic as so reluctant at identifying incestuous and pedophile impulses in women. And we do know they exist.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU

The Turn of the Screw is a classic nineteenth century work by Henry James. Though it does contain some elements of melodrama, it also deals with issues important to the time. James is heavily influenced by the overall repressiveness of Victorian England. Though it can be interpreted as a horror story, it is also a social commentary on class structure and sexual repression. James's subtle writing style works well in this story and make sit suspenseful and gripping. The long sentences and flowery language of that period do not detract from the story. Instead of being tedious and slow it is very engrossing. Perhaps what is most enjoyable about the story is the ambiguity of it all - the reader is left guessing at the end, is left to decide what really happened for themselves. It is not like a modern ghost story - there is no blood and gore, no quick slasher thrills. Instead it is chilling and ominous - James works more with what is left unsaid than what is apparent on the surface.

The Turn of the Screw is said to be one of the greatest horror stories ever written. The book begins with a group of friends telling ghost stories on Christmas Eve. One story begins with a governess going to live with two orphans at a country estate in England. The children's uncle tells the governess never to bother him with any problems that may occur. The orphans, Miles and Flora, are gorgeous, innocent children that everyone admires. Miles gets thrown out of boarding school for a reason that no one understands. All the servants and employees at Bly, their estate, are shocked. The governess begins to see two people wandering around the house that she has never seen before. When she confronts Mrs. Grose, the housekeeper, about them, Mrs. Grose tells her that their names are Mrs. Jessel and Peter Quint, both of whom died the year before. Through subtle actions by the children, the governess fears that they are somehow affected by the ghosts, which cause the children to behave oddly toward her. The governess, the only one able to actually see the ghosts, is determined to fight for the children's lives.

Henry James does enthrall the reader with his attention to detail and ability to make the reader experience the horror and perceived threats of the ghosts toward the children and perhaps the others at Bly. This was one reason that I liked this book. It took awhile to get into the story, mostly because it was set in the late 1800's in England and the wording and style of those times took some getting used to. Additionally, James' sentence and paragraph structure can be especially long and complex with multiple phrasings in each sentence. However, once the ghosts threatened and the lives of the children appeared to be in danger, I was hooked.

Carl Van Doren, in his preface to the book, says, "The Turn of the Screw is the blackest of all nursery tales, the most terrifying of all ghost stories, the most pathetic of all the chronicles of damnation." I think this story would appeal to those who love a good ghost story. In fact, this was one of the first horror stories to introduce the idea of evil ghosts, ghosts that could be described as "demons from the pit." If you're looking for a happy ending, this isn't the book for you.

This is a gothic horror novel, actually a story within a story, about a young governess who is hired to care for two children. The governess encounters two ghosts about the estate and associates the ghosts with each of the children. There are some creepy moments, but I wouldn't call this book "scary" per se. I found the conclusion to be anti-climactic and wondering huh? There were parts of this story that were pretty wordy and went on endlessly, but the ending just left me wanting more and leaving me hanging. I had to read the SparkNotes to make sure that I had read the ending correctly.

I stumbled upon this one in a collection of gothic hooror. Absolutely loved it! Knocked my socks off. Literary analyis aside this is a great story. I never figured a victorian novel to be psychological, but the author masters it brilliantly. He also leaves a lot for interpretation which makes, still to this day, great conversation. This aspect may frustrate some readers, but once I saw what the author was doing, I had no problem with it. A wonderfully creepy ghost story and a must for fans of victorian literature.

The Turn of the Screw by Henry James is a wonderful short novel written in the late 1800's Victorian England. It includes many different themes and motifs such as loneliness, human suffering, class, and others. James's style consists of dense sentences, which carry loads of information at once. He does a wonderful job of showing the characters struggles, for example the governess struggles because she has no one to look up to and she is a higher class than all the other characters. James' writing forces the reader to form their own opinions. There is not one answer in the story James lets the reader figure it out themselves. James also sets up the story so that there are no reliable characters. We don't know who we can trust in the book and who we can't. The story definitely makes the reader think twice about the governess and it does not provide an answer to all the problems. The reader has to figure that out themselves.

Henry James' 'The Turn of the Screw' (1898) is the notorious supernatural novella that is almost as famous for the many interpretations of its 'ghosts'---are they actual, or merely the products of the protagonist's sexual repressions?--as for the story itself.

In 1945, American critic Edmund Wilson published a long, creatively successful, and influential essay outlining why he believed the governess at the center of the story was imagining apparitions where none actually existed. Later, when James' diaries came to light, Wilson publicly conceded the point, since James' diaries established that the author had indeed intended a straight-forward ghost story with genuine spiritual presences.

Though only a novella, the mildly engrossing 'The Turn of the Screw' remains ironically, an overlong and overly written work. James' sentence structure is often highly eccentric, and too many sentences seem to be about absolutely nothing at all (as Camille Paglia underscored in 1990's 'Sexual Personae,' no major American writer wrote as many bad and ponderous passages as James did).

The story has a proper young lady of nineteen taking her first job as a governess in an isolated manor house ("the place, with its grey sky and withered garlands, its bared space and scattered dead leaves...") where she is assisted by competent longtime housekeeper Mrs. Grose. Her two charges, Miles and Flora, are delightful, beautiful little children of calm manner and excellent disposition.

Within a week of her arrival, the governess begins to notice a strange man about the house and grounds, one who stares at her rather brazenly.

Questioning Mrs. Grose, she learns that the figure resembles Quint, a "menial" employee who recently died just outside the grounds of the estate.

Then the governess notices a female figure dressed in black as well, one who corresponds in appearance to Miss Jessel, the previous governess, also recently deceased. And Miles, it seems, has just been expelled from the public school he attends without specific explanation.

The governess slowly comes to the conclusion that the children are aware of the apparitions of the dead Quint and Jessel, and simply saying nothing, which outrages her, since this suggests that their placid exteriors are false ("It's a game...a policy and a fraud") and, more disturbing still, that they have a hidden independence and secret life from which she is excluded.

Before long, she is obsessed with her own theories about the mysterious figures ("How can I retrace to-day the strange steps of my obsession?"), what their intentions are, what they meant to one another while alive, and why Miles and Flora are so crispy nonchalant when asked about them.

In her quiet frenzy, the governess herself quickly becomes dangerous to the children, unable as she is to think of anything else, despite the apparent passivity of the specters.

Unstated but implied is the sexual corruption of the children by Quint and Jessel, who are not just the transgressive dead walking again in the world of the living, but phantom pedophiles as well.

The governess also maintains an ongoing fancy for her distant male employer, whom she has only met once and never will meet again, those conditions being the romance-quelching terms of her contract.

Is she unconsciously projecting her own romantic and sexual frustrations outward into the world, where they have taken the threatening form of Quint and Jessel?

Despite being only 93 pages, 'The Turn of the Screw' is simply too long, especially since most of the text is devoted to the governess's rambling emotionalism and ideas, and not to anything resembling a traditional ghost or gothic story.

Those who enjoy the book should seek out the excellent 1961 film version starring Deborah Kerr, 'The Innocents,' which follows the original closely, but makes the character of the governess some 20 years older.

That governess - is she just a love-struck melodramatic whack-job or is she genuine in her visions and concerns for her wards? James' language is over-labored and spends to much efforts getting nowhere at times - and to no great effect. Shakespeare is less complicated and more colorful. The color is often stripped out of the writing - and painted back in with a lighter wash. It moves the story forward - but often requires a step back here and there to clear things up. There is honest fear built up through the course of the tale - and I certainly felt that "waiting for the next shoe to drop" sense - but nothing that would keep me up at night.

The Turn of the Screw leaves a lot of questions unanswered. It is the story of a governess who is haunted by her predecessor and her [the former governess's] lover.. or at least thinks she is. She determines that the two ghosts are there for the children. Henry James never tells us straight out whether the governess is slowly going crazy, or if all that happens is true. There are hints at both situations.
Henry James uses the language very well. However, there are some references to art and literature that are interesting, but may not be immediately recognized. If you think they might interest you, I'd suggest getting an annotated edition.
If you are considering picking this book up for a scare, this might not satisfy you. If you want a thought-provoking, psychological novella, this is for you.

The recording of Turn of the Screw by Susannah York, languishing on obsolete audio cassettes and doomed to extinction, is the best one ever -- by orders of magnitude -- of this classic work, and it needs URGENTLY to be resuscitated and rereleased in an accessible format -- on CD or Audible mp3's. Before "its little heart, dispossessed, has stopped."

I read The Turn of the Screw during the summer of my Freshman year of high school. I can definitely say that it was one of the most engaging and intense works of literature that I have ever had the pleasure to read. If the generic title of "horror story" tends to turn you off, please don't let any preconceived notions prevent you from picking up this book. It is by far one of the most provocative and psychologically terrifying books that I have ever read. I loved every bit of it.

This novel is a intellectualized version of an ill fated love story which may seem dull and actionless to many due to the absence of love triangles, lusty love sences, violence, drugs, or some kind of ultimately pointless drama that we crave today, but to others this is a true masterpiece which explores the psychological aspects of every single character and shamelessly unveils their disfunctions, rarely done in modern literature and films.
Dr. Sloper is the father of a young woman, catherine, he is a medical doctor and his views are very technical he knows someone just by their exterior as a doctor in that time had to diagnose illnesses by examining the anatomy so therefore when Moriss townsend enters the picture to sweep catherine off her feet with his charmingly handsom good looks Dr. Sloper immediately rejects moriss' confession of loce for Catherine, because he looks very handsom on the outside, moriss really has no career no money and catherine is a daughter of a very wealthy Doctor and deceased mother. He immediately accuses moriss of being mercenary. Since catherine is afraid of her father and she is very timid and shy of the real world she can not break free into her own identity and is supressed by her father, and recoils her love and passion for moriss for 30 years. All meanwhile Mrs aunt penniman is Dr slopers meddling sister who is one of those couchpotato old hags that sit around all day and watch soap operas accept here her soap opera is catherines affairs with moriss and she enjoys taking the position of "messenger" between them without ever being instructed or hinted towards.
As my own diagnosis: It seems to be that Dr. Sloper loves Catherine even though his true love is for his dead wife and lost son, he loves her enough to take advantage of her fear of him and gradually force her to reject moriss, because the doctor within himself knows the ultimate truth behind this handsome man who is sly with his choice of words, and he knows that all his earnings will be left to poor, innocent, shy, and naive Catherine and Moriss will know exactly how to spend it.

As aforementioned in the title of this review, this is a brilliant ghost story. It is fairly hard to get into (people swapping ghost stories, then one of them begins to relate this tale), and at times I felt the writing was tedious and the characters unrealistic. It wasn't until I'd finished the book (and it's a short book) that its mysteries revealed themselves. That may sound peculiar, but it's the truth. The tale doesn't really seem bizarre until you look back over it. Thumbs up!

Even if (especially if!) you've never been able to get through one of the impenetrable longer novels (i.e., Wings of Dove, Golden Bowl, etc.), try Washington Square to find out what Henry James is all about. The short-novel format keeps James' winding, windy prose on story-telling task, without compromising his greatest novelistic qualities: his insights into his characters' motivations and his convincing renderings of the societies he describes. A really fantastic book!

The Turn of the Screw is one of the most outright brilliant, though freakishly dense pieces of literature I've ever read. And this edition happens to contain numerous essays and interpretations on Henry James' masterpieces that make reading through it a second time that much more exciting.

The Turn of the Screw Book Review

The overall story was good and interesting, and yet there were a few aspects that could have been better. The character development was pretty good with the Governess, the children, Mrs. Grose, but the way he was able to build the ghosts I thought was really good. There was no information about them until the Governess was frightened and talked to Mrs. Grose about them. I did not enjoy Henry James' style of writing because it took so long to get hooked on a certain event. He would start off with these long descriptive paragraphs and sentences that were really boring to read, then he would have these fast paced dialogues and events and I could feel the fear of the character. This was good to build suspense but if there could have been less descriptive paragraphs I think it would have made the story a whole lot better.

The story was in the Governess' point of view, which made it less interesting because a lot of time was spent with the governess' thoughts when I really wanted more events to take place. Her thoughts were interesting in showing her fear and sharing it with me, but all the assumptions that were being made, and her thoughts of everyone against her was something that I was not interested in. If I could have seen what the children were thinking, there would have been more information and might have seen that the ghosts were really real and they did not want the governess around them.

I am drawn to this classic, and have read several times. Be patient as you explore the relationships between Catherine and her father, aunt and Mr. Morris Townsend. Catherine's kind heart, and gentle ways are juxtaposed with her underlying strong principals and character. If you have the chance, watch Billy Wilder's "The Heiress" with Olivia de Havilland, Montgomery Cliff and Ralph Richardson. The best!

Just finished reading Washington Square by Henry James. A masterpiece of character sketching of an autocratic all knowing father and a devoted daughter who shows an astonishing strength of mind when pushed to the limit of endurance by both her lover and her father. What a page turner this book turned out to be even though nothing happens in terms of events. The absence of the mother in Catherine's case adds to the tragedy of the situation. The mother is role is replaced by that of a silly and cunning aunt whose character is the only one that seems hard to believe. One is happy that the patriarch Dr. Sloper with all his money power is snubbed in the end and even his threat to cut catherine off from her inheritance doesnt quite give him the satisfaction he craves " to have done the right thing". A celebration of womanhood and a must read for everyone.

"Turn of the Screw" has attained such a status that it's essentially review-proof, but all the same I can only urge anyone who might be thinking about reading James's thoroughly overrated novella on the basis that it is a great ghost story to pass on it. The fact is "Turn of the Screw" isn't much of a ghost story, no matter its reputation or even the prologue which endeavors to establish it as such and makes a number of promises the unfolding story itself never keeps. Though adequately written in terms of style and command of language, the story simply never comes to life. It's all a tremendous build-up which never reaches climax, or even a near-climax. The alleged ghosts--and part of the novella's appeal to the literary elite is that the appartions may or may not be real--only make a few appearances, and really their effect upon the narrative as a whole is quite negligible. I daresay that if the entire supernatural element were removed entirely, the novella wouldn't be greatly changed for it. "Turn of the Screw" is really a drama concerning a young, frustrated and possibly delusional governess who must wrestle with the consciences of the two children under her care. Much more of the story deals with the efforts of the governess to understand what the siblings--especially the boy--really want from the narrator than it does with anything spectral. I am quite baffled by the story's reputation as a chiller. Subtle horror is fine--often it is far more terrifying than the more common "blood and thunder" approach--but I don't know that James ever intended for this story to be genuinely horrifying. If so, he failed. In truth, I believe the novella's lofty reputation is founded more upon the ambiguous nature of the plot than upon any merits as a ghost story. I can certainly understand why English professors who don't care for more traditional tales of terror might consider "Turn of the Screw" so much more to their liking: it's a ghost story that possibly doesn't have any ghosts in it. Certainly, there are no horrors. Readers seeking gothic terrors are advised to look elsewhere.

Washinton Square is an engaging story in the fact that it fixes your attention. I was very interested to find out what would become of Catherine Sloper. She is an innocent heroine pursued by a selfish man(Morris Townsend)for her fortune she stands to inherit. Her father is right in his assumption that Morris is a fortunehunter and does all in his power to stop a marriage from taking place. However, his motives are not purely to keep his daughter from unhappiness. They are mainly focused on vanquishing his foe. His daughter discovers that her father cares very little for her and her feelings, and this causes as much pain as realizing that her intended wants only her money. I do not read fiction to view reality, but to escape it. Therefore, I was not satisfied with the ending. I would have liked the ending more if Catherine had realized the true happiness of escaping such an unhappy existence of being married to someone she couldn't respect or trust. Instead she hangs onto her love for Morris even after discovering what he truly is.

Washington Square, written by Henry James, is a novel which takes place in the 1800's. It is about a quiet and well behaved girl named Catherine Sloper, the daughter of an infamous doctor in town. One day, she meets Morris Townsend, a very good looking man who wishes to marry her. Catherine's father feels as if he's only after the fortune she will inherit and doesn't want the marriage to happen.
James' development of the characters in the novel is very in depth, giving insight into their minds. The reader is then able to see the themes of deception in the novel. Catherine is always struggling with her father for his acceptance; however, she feels betrayed by him since he won't allow the marriage between she and Morris. At the same time, Dr. Sloper feels let down by Catherine because he thinks that she won't take his advice about Morris.
Another noticeable part of this novel is the change Catherine goes through. In the beginning of the book, she was weak and wouldn't speak up for herself. As the story continues, she becomes stronger and more defiant, especially to her father. This was a big statement during the time period since women weren't supposed to speak their mind about issues. They didn't have as much of a say in society as they do now. The novel shows how James supports the rights of women, since he put Catherine as the heroine.
Many people would enjoy this book because the story is very easy to understand. James' style of writing is clear-cut and well thought out. The only downfall of the novel is the lack of action, but it is still interesting to see the story develop.

I had the pleasure of playing Morris Townsend in The Heiress, the play version of James' Washington Square at my local theatre. In preparation for the role I read the novel and was delighted. Unlike the play, which tries to make up the viewers mind about who is good and who is bad, James' original novel is all about gray area; one never really knows who is the antagonists are. Catherine, no doubt, is the protagonist, but its hard to gauge who the real villian is, Morris or Catherine's father. Either way, it doesn't matter as Catherine ultimately makes her own decision, which is what the book is really about: taking control of one's life. Like any James work, Washington Square is a thought-provoking read. Enjoy!

I didn't like the first person style in which most of this book is written. The times when someone else besides the governess is speaking it becomes hard to follow who is talking. However after completing this novella, I realize this style may have been needed to raise some questions in the reader's minds whether or not the governess is just imagining all that she sees, or whether there really are ghosts about the manor trying to corrupt these cherub like children to do unspeakable evil. At times I felt the suspense was forced. Too many pages were used to explain why she just didn't come out and confront the children in the first place, speak to their uncle, or speak to someone at the school. The introductory pages of people telling ghost stories seemed unnecessary as well since it is never tied back in to the story at the end. At times the story shows so much potential to build you up to a great surprise climax at the end, but then in my opinion, it falls short.

Two words, Holy Moly, this is definitely one of Henry James's masterpiece, concentrating on the Victorian era, the ambiguity of the vague responses given by his characters will keep us guessing until the very end on whether the protagonist is mentally unstable or not.

Taking place around the late 1900s in England, James centers his story on the diary of an unnamed governess. This piece is somewhat of an antithesis of another familiar story also about a governess, Jane Eyre. In the story, much of Miller's governess contrasts the characteristics of Jane Eyre. Aside from this fact, what makes Miller's work truly spectacular is his character development and narrative, which all contribute to his ambiguity. Because he uses an outsider within the story to narrate the diary of the governess, the details within the book are subject to be biased or inaccurate in view. As a result, with each sentence we are forced to wonder if this really happened the way it was told, or if it was twisted in some shape or form. Moreover, as the reader slowly learns of the dual interpretations of whether the governess be insane or not, our interest is piqued in finding the right answer. However, all of Miller's dialogue is refined In such a way where skeptics can see it as a point refuting the believers and vice versa.

Even at the conclusion of the book, many of us are still left guessing, which makes for one of the best mystery endings I have ever read. Not only is the reader left clueless as to the true mental stability of the governess, but Miller sparked a debate in which to this day literary critics all over the world are still debating over.

If you love a good gothic, mystery type of book, this is one that you cannot miss! some people may be stunned as to the complexity and depth of the writing as it is so complex with a labyrinth of turns. It will hold those interested spellbound until the book is finished and more!

Henry James is not everyone's cup of tea. They consider his pacing to be mortifyingly slow. They think his focus on morals and manners can be pretentious. For those people, I implore them to read "The Turn of the Screw". I won't re-hash the plot here; plenty of other reviewers have written perfectly good summations. What I want to recommend here is that this is a perfectly paced DRAMA. The psychosexual tensions, which appear to manifest themselves in the supernatural, are both fascinating and satisfying. This has to be one of the best 'scary" (for lack of a better word) stories of modern, if not all, time.

Rocco Dormarunno, author of THE FIVE POINTS

James wrote somewhere that his tales were often about the children of light being destroyed by the darkness. This moving tale of a plain, sweet girl's devotion to a worthless fortune-hunter and the strength and wisdom she finds too late is a powerful example of this theme. This is a novel less ornate, shorter, and easier to get through than some of the later masterpieces. An excellent introduction to James.

I read this short book for a class in college, but I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys a story that has multiple layers. "The Turn of the Screw" is all about suspense. The whole book, told to the reader in the first person point of view of "the governess," builds suspense upon suspense. The story focuses on a governess that watches over two children, Miles and Flora. Not long after she arrives, she begins to see the image of two ghosts, the ominous Peter Quinn and Miss Jessel. Both ghosts had previous contact with the children, and the governess soon decides that the children are connected to this evil. Confiding only in her friend Miss Grose, the governess' suspicions about the children are either totally fabricated by a sick mind, or, even more terrifying, absolutely true! The best thing about James' story is that the reader is left to make his or her own conclusions. James brings up the suspense to a crucial point and then leaves the reader hanging at the highest point of the climax. Some readers might find this unresolved ending unnerving or irritating, but I enjoyed making my own assumptions about what was going on and how it ended. This is a story that can be taken from multiple point of views and because of this, I advise sharing this book with friends. It makes for great conversations and debates!

I thought Washington Square was well written, but lacked a "good" ending. I felt Catherine was slighted by not getting a husband and growing to be an old maid. Besides this, the book was good. There were characters you loved to hate and it was a novel for all those feminists to hate. Since I had to read this for a book project at school, I couldn't really get into it because of the thoughts of impending essay to be written on it. All in all it was a good, not great, read.

I had been informed, before reading The Turn of the Screw, that it would not provide many answers to the questions it provoked. After finishing the novel, I would pass this along to future readers as well. The Turn of the Screw is an excellent story with wonderful details and an extremely creative plot. It is the first book I have ever read that has caused me to be frightened. Many times while reading the story late at night, I would find myself with my hand on my chest, holding my breath because I was so intrigued with the story line. Although it had a wonderful plot, Henry James does leave many questions unanswered. This allows the reader to interpret the events in whatever manner they choose. The complexity of the story depends on the complexity of the thought the reader puts into it. The Turn of the Screw is an excellent book and I would strongly recommend it to anyone. It is a clever novel for a clever reader.

This psychological thriller is one that will keep you in suspense throughout the entire story and leave you to question "what really happened"? Was it the ghosts of two unstable & dead personalities or was it all in the mind of the governess. Excellent!

When I began to read The Turn Of The Screw by Henry James, I made the assumption this book would be different from all other books which I have read. I thought it would be different because it is considered an American literature classic. Although Henry James is among many great authors, he is without a doubt, a one of a kind.
In this book his unique writing style has me wondering why such thoughts went through his mind. His wordy and elaborate writing style presented his strange subject matter in a style that could be accepted in his time. While it is sometimes difficult to follow the story it allowed James to express what would have been a controversial topic.
At times in this story you become anxious and excited, while at other times you are left picking and choosing what you think is going on, and when you least expect something to happen you become surprised, and become more interested in the book.
The ending surprised me. What I thought was going to be a happy ending turned into a perverse finale and a total tragedy. From beginning to end, Henry James wrote a book that is different from all other books.

From the opening page, we have it that nothing matches this tale's dreadfulness, uncanny ugliness, and horror. Now, for the people reading it around the beginning of the 20th century (when it was published), this might have held true, but for a reader of the present day, this tale isn't going to strike them as being in the least scary. Basically, the only elements of the story that can be construed as even remotely scary are the presence of two ghosts, who just seem to be wandering around looking for something.

Now, while this tale falls woefully short in instilling fear in its reader, it nonetheless remains a very entertaining read, because the mystery that unfolds in this short tale isn't derived from the scariness it is meant to produce; the tale's mystery is just as mysterious in the absence of fear as it would be if it were presence.

The mystery concerns a governess who has recently taken on employment at an isolated country estate. Her two charges are a boy and a girl, Miles, and Flora, who are both graced with overwhelming physical beauty, intellectually quite adept, and impeccably well behaved. In short, they seem to be ideal children. Miles has actually been dismissed from his school for unspecified reasons, but the governess chalks this up to unfair treatment given all his redeeming virtues. So, all is well until one day she encounters a ghost on her daily walk about the premises.

This encounter starts a chain of events lead to the governess adopting a Sherlock Holmes persona and baptizing Mrs. Goose, the housekeeper, into the role of her Watson. In the course of her investigation, she encounters another ghost, learns what both ghost are after, and who they are, and begins to question whether Miles and Flora's displayed perfection is just a façade to mask their sinister nature. The key to solving the mystery turns on with what caused Miles's dismissal from school and the identity of the two ghosts.

In this brief work, James has crafted a rather well paced mystery that is told with descriptively rich language and with elaborate and fluid prose. In other words, it was quite a pleasure to read.

.....to a great illustration of a woman's life in XIX century.
It starts very slowly but you end up to be curious about the choices Catherine will make.
Catherine seems to be an empty mind young lady but finally, depending on men as most of her "sisters" at this times, reveals courageously a way of becoming independent.

Henry James' 'Turn of the Screw' is a famously ambiguous tale. Are the ghosts in it real, or are they only figments of the imagination of the rather neurotic Governess? Despite all the hints that the woman is projecting her own fears and distorted, repressed sexuality, there are other powerful clues that she has in fact seen real ghosts, genuine other-worldly revenants. The story is given a very effective, listenable-to rendition by Stephanie Beecham, whose rather grand, 'posh' but smokey voice fits very well the character of a middle-aged Governess who is looking back on a baffling and scary episode of her early life. I recommend this set of CDs unreservedly, especially as we have the complete, unabridged novella here. Excellent.

this book is certainly a masterpiece. It is short and well develop.Henry James's books are usually slow in developing their plot but this one due to its brevity is very quick in the evolution of its plot. This book could be called the book of ambivalence;nobody knows who is telling the truth or what is happening. the reader will enjoy it till the very surprising end.

A young governess is hired to look after two seemingly angelic orphans--Flora and Miles. Seemingly, but why was Miles dismissed from school? and who are the strangers who the governess sees at windows? As in most of James' work, these questions are raised but not answered. However, in this novella he is presenting a gothic mystery, so the open ended questions are appropriate.
Apparently Turn of the Screw was controversial when James wrote it, because of it's presentation of children as potentially wicked. In the era of Littleton, I don't think there's anyone left who will argue that children are incapable of evil.
It's just a good creepy little tale.
GRADE: B

Often unjustly overlooked in the Jamesian canon, Washington Square achieves the almost impossible; it makes a character who possesses neither great beauty nor wit absolutely compelling. Although Catherine's fate is ultimately tragic, she does gain revenge on the two gentlemen who wrong her, albeit in a rather oblique way.

Being a lover of nearly all things Jamesian, this is yet another masterpiece that juxtaposes a painfully plain heiress against her newly found passion. James is as lyrically splendid as always and it's definitely worth a read.... I think if I would have changed anything I would have loved for it to be longer, in fact.

The Heritage Turn of the Screw is a tasteful affair.

Bound in russet or green cloth with silver details in matching slipcase. 12 full page Lydis illustrations, an introduction by Van Doren. Two-color decorative elements at each chapter heading. 145 pp in a sewn binding.

This story involves two ghosts

And some children perhaps their hosts.

Has their young governess gone quite mad?

Are or these children possessed and bad?

Questions, questions are all we see

No clear answers are going to be.

Henry James wrote this great ghost tale

And its worthiness does prevail.

So read this book and get a chill

Excellent writing enjoyed still.

The Heritage Turn of the Screw is a tasteful affair.

Bound in russet or green cloth with silver details in matching slipcase. 12 full page Lydis illustrations, an introduction by Van Doren. Two-color decorative elements at each chapter heading. 145 pp in a sewn binding.

The Heritage Turn of the Screw is a tasteful affair.

Bound in russet or green cloth with silver details in matching slipcase. 12 full page Lydis illustrations, an introduction by Van Doren. Two-color decorative elements at each chapter heading. 145 pp in a sewn binding.

The Heritage Turn of the Screw is a tasteful affair.

Bound in russet or green cloth with silver details in matching slipcase. 12 full page Lydis illustrations, an introduction by Van Doren. Two-color decorative elements at each chapter heading. 145 pp in a sewn binding.

The Heritage Turn of the Screw is a tasteful affair.

Bound in russet or green cloth with silver details in matching slipcase. 12 full page Lydis illustrations, an introduction by Van Doren. Two-color decorative elements at each chapter heading. 145 pp in a sewn binding.

The Heritage Turn of the Screw is a tasteful affair.

Bound in russet or green cloth with silver details in matching slipcase. 12 full page Lydis illustrations, an introduction by Van Doren. Two-color decorative elements at each chapter heading. 145 pp in a sewn binding.

The Heritage Turn of the Screw is a tasteful affair.

Bound in russet or green cloth with silver details in matching slipcase. 12 full page Lydis illustrations, an introduction by Van Doren. Two-color decorative elements at each chapter heading. 145 pp in a sewn binding.

The Heritage Turn of the Screw is a tasteful affair.

Bound in russet or green cloth with silver details in matching slipcase. 12 full page Lydis illustrations, an introduction by Van Doren. Two-color decorative elements at each chapter heading. 145 pp in a sewn binding.

The Heritage Turn of the Screw is a tasteful affair.

Bound in russet or green cloth with silver details in matching slipcase. 12 full page Lydis illustrations, an introduction by Van Doren. Two-color decorative elements at each chapter heading. 145 pp in a sewn binding.

The Heritage Turn of the Screw is a tasteful affair.

Bound in russet or green cloth with silver details in matching slipcase. 12 full page Lydis illustrations, an introduction by Van Doren. Two-color decorative elements at each chapter heading. 145 pp in a sewn binding.

The Heritage Turn of the Screw is a tasteful affair.

Bound in russet or green cloth with silver details in matching slipcase. 12 full page Lydis illustrations, an introduction by Van Doren. Two-color decorative elements at each chapter heading. 145 pp in a sewn binding.

The Turn of the Screw is an alright novel if you like that sort of reading, it requires in depth dissection of everything said, and you get no real answers in the end, which is what I really didn't like, though I have theories of my own. After the initial read I was very disappointed, I had been told that it was a great novel; however, after discussing the book in my American novels class, many things were revealed to me that I had not noticed before.

For those of you that don't like dissecting books and just want to sit down and enjoy a good read, I really don't recommend this story. However if you enjoy picking stories apart you will love this book. For me it was a 50/50 toss up book, not great but not bad either.

Writing style is from a bygone era a little hard to read, what with the long sentences and all, but it's still a masterful ghost story with multifaceted psychological meanings. I hate to really say this, but it helps to have seen the brilliant film version, "The Innocents" before tackling the book.

I found this to be a rather boring classic. I just couldn't really get interested in it enough to not be confused. I didn't even understand what happened in the end. I stayed confused for most of the book. I started over several times but still couldn't keep up with who was speaking who they were speaking about. So I can't recommend this book. Sorry.

esta obra es una novela de ambiguedades, no como otras novelas de henry james que son de ritmo lento y hasta medio aburridas, esta obra es rapida y su brevedad la hace mas deliciosa. al final quedamos con las dudas sobre lo que paso en la casa con los ninos y la maestra. solo nos queda imaginarnos que paso al final y mas alla... muy buena. LUIS MENDEZ

The psychological terror that "The Turn of the Screw" creates for a reader is unmatched by almost everything I have ever read. The story unfolds so slowly -- yet, paradoxically, also very quickly -- that the feelings of dread just grow.

Were they there? Any ghost story HAS ghosts, that's why I think they WERE actually there. I do not think I am spoiling anyone's reading in stating this, since that is a personal answer to the question. Henry James skillfully plays around the doubt all the way through "The Turn of the Screw", while generations of readers have discoursed about the matter, finding no ultimate answer. This is only one of the novel's many excellencies. With one foot solidly in the old gothic tradition and the other already into psychoanalysis, "Turn of the screw" takes the best from both worlds. And it is worrying rather than scaring, always keeping us captive in a world of inescapable beauty.

Today's readers may not find Henry James's masterpiece "The Turn of the Screw" as creepy as it was when first published. To begin with, there is no gore in the book --the moments of horror are so subtle, but they get under one skin.
"The Turn of the Screw" was first published as a serialized novel in Collier's Weekly. After that it was published in the novel format, both in England and USA. When James wrote this novella was a period of increase of the popularity of spiritual issues. Many people were searching for new ways of explaining death, and they were also loosing their Christian faith. Many were trying to communicate with the Other Side.
But the dead in the novella, as James once stated, are not ghosts, as we know them. However, this belief persisted through time, and even today, most readers assume that Peter Quint and Miss Jessel are spectrums or a so-called entity.
On the form, "The Turn of the Screw" has some innovations. Prior to James, most novels were written through one point of view --this narrator told the story and the characters and actions are under his/her way of viewing, judgments, and conclusions. On the other hand, most of James's novels count with a difference: the narrator/character is not aware of everything. In this particular novella, we see the story through the eyes of governess and we know as little as she. Not only she, but also we, has a limited knowledge of the events.
Much can be concluded from the story --it is impossible to have a definitive conclusion. Some say the governess was a good character fighting against evil to protect the two children. But some scholars have researched and concluded that, as a matter of fact, the governess had a troubled mind. In 1934, Edmund Wilson wrote an essay that has become one of the most influential works on Henry James's ambiguity. Based on Freudian theory, Wilson argues that the governess's sexual repression leads her to neurotically imagine and interpret ghosts.
However, postmodernism have led critics to a different conclusion, which adds the two main chains of sturdy of "The Turn of the Screw". Not only are the ghosts in the novel, but the governess can also be mad. For these scholars, every incident can be interpreted as to prove that the governess is mad and to prove that there are ghosts. This irresolvable controversy makes James's work so brilliant and timeless.
Now it is up to each reader to find his/her own ghosts in this brilliant novella --so short and so deep and complex. Contemporary readers may be stunned and still scared with the smartness of the text. As the first narrator introduces the text, he says in the first line "the story had held us", "The Turn of the Screw" will hold every sophisticated reader in his/her seat.

Not good, my friends, not good. For a book that's referred to as a classic, suspenseful ghost story, this was a big disappointment. Thank goodness it was only 87 pages. Otherwise, I may not have been able to finish it.

It's hard to know how to rate this. Of course, it's ridiculously presumptuous for me to give a classic of English literature anything less than the full rating, but honestly? It's hard to read. The sentences are so elliptical, and the sensibilities of the narrator so difficult for a modern reader to intuit, that I finally rated it for its appeal to a casual reader. Reading it now, I didn't really suffer any thrills of horror. The ghost story really hasn't been the same since Stephen King started writing. Instead, what struck me was the flightiness of the governess, her daisy-chains of inference, and at least two instances where she reports things to the housekeeper as facts that contradict elements of her own narrative. That's the beauty of the story for me, the deftness with which James instills doubt about the credibility of his narrator. So, as a foundation of the horror genre and part of the English lit cannon, may every library contain at least one copy. But it's probably best actually read in the context of a class, where it can be appreciated for its structure and significance and no one will expect reading it to actually be fun.

Strangely enough, while I was reading this story that is supposed to have two sides you can see the tale from (either the governess is crazy or there really are ghosts that no one else can see or admit to), I truly believed only one viewpoint. I think this goes to show how much I believe in what could possibly be out there. It was a decent story though I believe time has muted the shock and horror somewhat. The ending still confuses me. Though, the whole beginning chapter was unnecessary. Why distance readers from the story by making it a story within a story? As a side note, during the whole time I was reading this story I kept thinking of the movie The Others, which is somewhat similar in plot.

This is quite creepy so successful in that regard.
However it's really difficult to read. Some of the sentences are very long and require to be read a few times to get the meaning. I know that sounds like a child's complaint but I feel happier that others have also found it difficult. Also the story is not fully explained which adds to the feeling of uncertainty about what is going on.
But ok

This book is not for someone used to the typical mystery novel with simple dialogue and language a fifth grader could understand. This uses a lot of gadzookery and antiquated speech/grammar. I consider myself to be very intelligent and love reading the classics and even get Shakespeare, but this is a bit of a difficult read. James is a beautiful writer and has an amazing vocabulary and a firm grasp on the English language but much of it can be hard to absorb. Words then have different meanings now and are contextually difficult and it makes it even harder to discern their meaning when the sentences are largely run-ons and consist of a very intense vocab. I have not finished reading it yet, but I find it tough to get through. While the language sounds great and it is clear that James is very intelligent, he over does it with the adjectives and complex words to the point where very few can read this book in our present day and understand it. It's more for a classroom where attention can be payed and students can discuss it. Not a train or bus ride read.

I will only purchase books from the bookstores from now on. The print was small and the book was The Turn of the Screw (Tor Classics)what I would consider poor quality.

Before reading this book,I had never really imagined the extent of darkness that lies in the human soul. I was fascinated by the maddening subtlety and mystery of this tale , as well as it's sheer terror; all elements that are actually a part of sexuality. It's a dangerous tale and the truly fearful thing about it is that it is obviously an overflow of the author's own inhibitions on paper. This is not a technical piece of work. James obviously harboured some very dark desires of his own.

The book opens with a woman retelling a story from the past. The woman recieves a job as a governess of two young children, both of which are orphans. Everything was fine at the countryhouse until she started to see ghosts from the past, and terrifying situations began to happen. The governess must try to convince the children that they too see the ghosts. Are the ghosts realy there? Is everything an illusion? You may never know. If you enjoy reading short mystery books, pick this one up A.S.A.P.!!

I rate "The Turn of the Screw" 5 stars for one reason and one reason only. Namely: After a century of debate, with one side poised against another as to the true meaning of this story; after the ambiguous and specious statements made by James himself concerning the story, one can only come to one conclusion, an unsettling one for the many devotees of this story; but one I think is the correct conclusion for this long debated and long lasting tale. Thusly:

Heny James has perpetrated a very ingenious hoax on the readers of his little treatise into the unusual, "supernatural" occurrences that inhabit this world he invented, and these happenings' consequences on the human mind.

In short, the whole story is a one big joke on the reader. Think about it. Learned scholars have debated this story and its meaning for the better part of a century. Yet no one can conclusively say what the story means. Intellectuals have attempted to apply freudian interpretations to unlock its mysteries but with no success.

When practically every line in a book can be taken in two ways. When sentences of importance to the heart of a story are craftily written so as to impose dual meanings upon the reader endeavoring to unlock the story's mysteries; and when the author himself refuses to lead you to some conclusion to those mysteries (even with the subtlest of clues either in the story or in his commentaries of the story); you have a hoax plain and simple. A monumental joke where the reader senses a deeper, hidden meaning constantly beyond his grasp, but almost at his fingertips!

Put one more way: when everything of importance in a story means two things, then everything of importance in the story means nothing; and thus cannot not be important, unless you recognise that it means nothing. A very clever and amusing work. A practical joke of deception that if luck is with you, you will have people talking about your work until the Crack of Doom! (And Mr James has almost made it!)

So 5 stars for a very intricate and enigmatic joke; but one star if you expect to read a deeply psychological/metaphysical tale of horror. Your imagination supplies the horror, whilst Mr James stands on the bank of the river Styx supplying the laughter of his well done deception. That laughter growing ever louder as your perplexity increases, along with your increasing desire to finally finish the puzzle from a box with no pieces!

IN CHRIST JESUS: THE LORD GOD INCARNATE!!!

W. Braithwaite

*Gospel of John*

"Turn of the Screw" starts out fine, but leaves too much unexplained. I tossed and turned and couldn't sleep after reading it. Hard to know if the governess is hysterical, if the children are being controlled by the spirits or what. The ending is shocking and still leaves too much unanswered.

This story sounds like it should be a real thriller: a young governess is given charge of two children at a remote manor house where she proceeds to see ghosts. She believes the ghosts have evil intent towards the children and puts herself to protect her charges, only to come to suspect that the children are well aware of what is going on and welcome it.
What's the problem with this? Well, in the first place, it's just dull. If you've read my summary, you can dispense with the book because literally nothing else happens. Apart from a few ghost sightings, there are no events in this book. Now maybe ghost sightings themselves were enough to give a shiver at the time TOTS was written, but in the age of Stephen King and Clive Barker, mere apparitions just aren't much of a challenge. Although there are allegedly evil doings afoot at Bly, the only reason anyone should suspect such a thing is because the narrator says it's so. According to literary crititcs, this gives TOTS a "delicious ambiguity." Amibguous it might be; delicious it certainly is not.
The characters are flat -- in fact they are all but caricatures. In fact, the book relies on the reader's having an understanding of and sharing the social assumptions of the time it was written to have any kind of effect. Children are by nature innocent; servants are by nature inferior, and that sort of rubbish. If you buy that, you can buy that Miss Jessup was evil simply because she associated with someone beneath her and that Quint was evil because he "gave himself airs," but I don't buy it at all. I really like authors to support such sweeping statements and I didn't see James making any effort to do so.
Another thing I find tiring about James is that he never uses one word to say something when ten will do. There were whole chapters in TOTS that could have been admirably summed up by the narrator's stating that she just didn't know what was the right thing to do next, and a great many passages that were so convoluted in terms of language that it took rereading them several times to even get a sense of the point.
Reading _Turn of the Screw_ made it easy to understand why Henry James's novels so quickly fell out of fashion and why he never made it as a playwrite. Some lovely movies have been made from his work, but they rely heavily on the actors' ability to convey character in a way that he never does. If you're looking for a real classic chiller, read Shirley Jackson's _The Haunting of Hill House_, or even _Jane Eyre_. _Turn of the Screw_ is a boring waste of time.

Well-- I read this small story over Christmas Break for a Research and Comprehension class, and all I can say is... INNATE! Innate and extremely deep!
After all, the book's main focus is undoubtedly aimed at sex and class status. Although this book was written in the Victorian Era where discussion of sexual connotations, especially children's, are strictly forbidden, this book strangely relates to the modern world of sex and status. There are so many interpretations you can conceive from the odd chaos happening at the Bly Estate; and I think that's exactly what Henry James was trying to infer. Everything is so confusing and you don't know who is to blame, what they are to blame for, and WHAT exactly is going wrong anyway... and isn't that EXACTLY what is happening today? SEX IS NOTHING BUT CONFUSION! No matter your age, your class rank or status, OR sexual orientation.
I'm not saying that Henry James was a head of his time or anything, he was just in a position and time where he couldn't express his thoughts or beliefs regarding the issue without draping a vail over it. Which, in my opinion, he did a pretty good job of doing. He also did a good job of demonstrating the Victorian Era's household of rank: the mother (governess'), father (Peter Quint or insufficient headmaster), the children (Miles and Flora), and the housekeeper (Mrs. Grose). He also demonstrates the consequences of either not having, or having a corrupt working member of the household. I believe this goes as far as the modern-day household does. The children desperately need acceptable parents, and the parent figures need each other (children:mother, children:father, mother:father, father: mother, BOTH PARENTS:housekeeper, children:housekeeper) And so on...
So, in conclusion- this was a sick, corrupt, dishonest, sinister, grave story with unclear, bizarre motives... but it obviously got me thinking!
I hope you don't enjoy it, for morality's sake!

One of his simpler books. Very easy to read for those who find his other works a bit more difficult to follow. A classic plot that makes for a very quick read: greed, control, jealousy, indifference. A good period piece that is written in a very simple style- especially for James.