The Turn of the Screw
A young governess takes charge of two beautiful, strangely good children at a lonely country house. Then she begins to see a man and a woman who should not be there, and she is sure the children see them too. By Henry James (1898). A public-domain classic.
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How it begins The story had held us, round the fire, sufficiently breathless, but except the obvious remark that it was gruesome, as, on Christmas Eve in an old house, a strange tale should essentially be, I remember no comment uttered till somebody happened to say that it was the only case he had met in which such a visitation had fallen on a child. The case, I may mention, was that of an apparition in just such an old house as had gathered us for the occasion—an appearance, of a dreadful kind, to a little boy sleeping in the room with his mother and waking her up in the terror of it; waking her not to dissipate his dread and soothe him to sleep again, but to encounter also, herself, before she had succeeded in doing so, the same sight that had shaken him. It was this observation that drew from Douglas—not immediately, but later in the evening—a reply that had the interesting consequence to which I call attention. Someone else told a story not particularly effective, which I saw he was not following. This I took for a sign that he had himself something to produce and that we should only have to wait. We waited in fact till two nights later; but that same evening, before we scattered, he brought out what was in his mind.“I quite agree—in regard to Griffin’s ghost, or whatever it was—that its appearing first to the little boy, at so tender an age, adds a particular touch. But it’s not the first occurrence of its charming kind that I know to have involved a child. If the child gives the effect another turn of the screw, what do you say to two children—?” Keep reading →About this story
A young governess takes a job at a country house called Bly, caring for two orphaned children whose uncle wants nothing to do with them. At first it is a happy place. Then she sees a figure on the tower, and again at the window, and starts to think the children know more than they say.
Henry James published it in 1898, first in a magazine over several weeks. The question people still argue about is whether the ghosts are real or exist only in the governess’s mind, and James wrote it so that both readings work. It is a short book, but it is written in dense, careful sentences, so read it slowly.
- Themes
- Fear, innocence, ambiguity, what we can trust in a narrator
- Good for
- Readers who like ghost stories that stay uncertain, and book groups
- Worth noticing
- Every moment where the only proof of something is the governess’s word.
Chapters
- 1The Story Round the Fire13 min · 16 Oct
- 2Chapter 18 min · 16 Oct
- 3Chapter 27 min · 16 Oct
- 4Chapter 310 min · 16 Oct
- 5Chapter 410 min · 16 Oct
- 6Chapter 56 min · 16 Oct
- 7Chapter 612 min · 16 Oct
- 8Chapter 77 min · 16 Oct
- 9Chapter 89 min · 16 Oct
- 10Chapter 99 min · 16 Oct
- 11Chapter 108 min · 16 Oct
- 12Chapter 117 min · 16 Oct
- 13Chapter 125 min · 16 Oct
- 14Chapter 139 min · 16 Oct
- 15Chapter 146 min · 16 Oct
- 16Chapter 156 min · 16 Oct
- 17Chapter 165 min · 16 Oct
- 18Chapter 178 min · 16 Oct
- 19Chapter 186 min · 16 Oct
- 20Chapter 196 min · 16 Oct
- 21Chapter 208 min · 16 Oct
- 22Chapter 2110 min · 16 Oct
- 23Chapter 227 min · 16 Oct
- 24Chapter 237 min · 16 Oct
- 25Chapter 249 min · 16 Oct