The Turn of the Screw (Heathen Edition) - by Henry James (Hardcover)

About the Book

The Turn of the Screw by Henry James has garnered a reputation as the most analyzed and ambiguous ghost story in the English language.

Book Synopsis

Henry James (1843-1916) was a celebrated American author, who became a British subject in the last year of his life, and is considered by many to be among the greatest novelists in the English language having been thrice nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature. His novella The Turn of the Screw has garnered a reputation as the most analyzed and ambiguous ghost story in the English language and remains his most widely adapted work in other media. The story centers on a young governess sent to a remote estate to care for two orphans, but quickly becomes convinced that the grounds are haunted and its specters are stalking the children - but are they? And are they even real? And are the children aware? Questions author Gillian Flynn sums perfectly with her observation, "The Turn of the Screw is one of the most chilling ghost stories ever, largely because it is so deliciously elusive."

Review Quotes

"The Turn of the Screw is one of the most chilling ghost stories ever, largely because it is so deliciously elusive." -Gillian Flynn

"Cruel and untrue." -Bookman

"Distinctly repulsive." -Outlook

"A most wonderful, lurid poisonous little tale." -Oscar Wilde

"One of the most thrilling stories we have ever read." -The New York Tribune

"The most hopelessly evil story that we could have read in any literature." -Independent

"[Henry James] is by no means a safe author to give for a Christmas gift." -Ainlee's Magazine

"The finest work he has ever done . . . a beautiful pearl: something perfect, rounded, calm, unforgettable." -The American Monthly Review of Reviews

"[James] made The Turn of the Screw as frightening and dramatic as he could . . . So frightening, indeed, that he actually frightened himself. When he came to correct the proofs of the story, which was serialised over 12 issues in 1898, he told his friend Edmund Goose: 'When I had finished them I was so frightened that I was afraid to go upstairs to bed.'" -Colm Tóibín, The Guardian

"It's the darkest, richest ghost story I've ever read. Its profoundest pleasure lies in the beautifully fussed over way in which James refuses to come down on either side. In its twenty-four brief chapters, the book becomes a modest monument to the bold pursuit of ambiguity. At each rereading, you have to marvel anew at how adroitly and painstakingly James plays both sides." -Brad Leithauser, The New Yorker