Turn of the Screw: and Owen Wingrave

by Henry James, Kate Mosse (Afterword)

Designed to appeal to the book lover, the Macmillan Collector's Library is a series of beautifully bound pocket-sized gift editions of much loved classic titles. Bound in real cloth, printed on high quality paper, and featuring ribbon markers and gilt edges, Macmillan Collector's Library are books to love and treasure.

A young governess is employed to look after two orphaned children in a grand country house. Isolated and inexperienced, she is at first charmed by her young charges but gradually she suspects that they may not be as innocent as they seem. And do the sinister figures that she sees at the window exist only in her imagination or are they ghosts intent on a terrible and devastating task? The Turn of the Screw is one of the most famous and eerily equivocal ghost stories ever written.

Owen Wingrave is the story of the son of a long line of military heroes who refuses to follow tradition, yet proves his bravery in a haunted room.

This Macmillan Collector's Library edition features an afterword by award winning novelist, Kate Mosse.

Genres: Gothic, Classics, Horror, Fiction, Mystery, Ghosts

216 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1898

About the author

Henry James was an American-British author. He is regarded as a key transitional figure between literary realism and literary modernism, and is considered by many to be among the greatest novelists in the English language. He was the son of Henry James Sr. and the brother of philosopher and psychologist William James and diarist Alice James.
He is best known for his novels dealing with the social and marital interplay between émigré Americans, the English, and continental Europeans, such as The Portrait of a Lady. His later works, such as The Ambassadors, The Wings of the Dove and The Golden Bowl were increasingly experimental. In describing the internal states of mind and social dynamics of his characters, James often wrote in a style in which ambiguous or contradictory motives and impressions were overlaid or juxtaposed in the discussion of a character's psyche. For their unique ambiguity, as well as for other aspects of their composition, his late works have been compared to Impressionist painting.
His novella The Turn of the Screw has garnered a reputation as the most analysed and ambiguous ghost story in the English language and remains his most widely adapted work in other media. He wrote other highly regarded ghost stories, such as "The Jolly Corner".
James published articles and books of criticism, travel, biography, autobiography, and plays. Born in the United States, James largely relocated to Europe as a young man, and eventually settled in England, becoming a British citizen in 1915, a year before his death. James was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1911, 1912, and 1916. Jorge Luis Borges said "I have visited some literatures of East and West; I have compiled an encyclopedic compendium of fantastic literature; I have translated Kafka, Melville, and Bloy; I know of no stranger work than that of Henry James."

Reviews

[Louise · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 Stars

Looks like it’s unpopular literary opinions time! And as a self-proclaimed lover of gothic fiction and a massive fan of ghost stories this is going to be even more blasphemous. So here goes: I don’t think The Turn of the Screw is very good. I didn’t find it scary, I didn’t find it exciting, I didn’t find it atmospheric or tense or any of those other descriptions people use for this book and I didn’t find it either surprising or thought-provoking. After all the hype surrounding this novella, all the praise for Henry James as a master of the ghost story, I’m afraid I rather found myself feeling supremely underwhelmed by it. That’s not to say I thought it was ‘bad’ or that I actively ‘disliked’ it – it was certainly interesting to read it knowing how much of a classic it is and how well discussed certain aspects of it are, but as a story it did pretty much nothing for me and left me feeling, if anything, rather neutral. I got on a little better with the second, much lesser known, story in this book, Owen Wingrave. But neither story, I would say, are ‘among the finest examples of the genre’.

The Turn of the Screw, famously, tells the story of a governess who believes the children in her care are being corrupted by evil spirits and the efforts she goes to protect them. Equally, if not more, famous is the critical debate surrounding the governess’s own sanity. Is she just imagining the ghosts? Are they real? Are they merely representations of her own sexual frustration? Blah blah sexist-freudian-wank blah. The actual story when you get down to it, however, is a pretty simple piece of genre writing and was viewed as such for a long time after it was published. I, personally, don’t think that there’s any doubt the ghosts do exist – the governess describes the ghost of a man she’s never met too well for that. The problem though is that I also have no doubts that (whether James intended it or not) the governess herself is a deeply unhinged individual with an obsessive and paranoid personality, who latches onto first impressions and performs some of the most astounding logical gymnastics to reach the conclusions that she does. As such, although I believe that the ghosts in the book are real I have absolutely no reason to believe that they are evil. This interpretation (and it is only my interpretation) makes it less a terrifyingly tense story about whether the spirits will succeed in corrupting the children and more a gothic comedy of errors - ‘lets watch how the governess leaps to ridiculous assumptions, fucks everything up, and ruins everyone’s lives’ – or at least that’s how it felt reading it.

The children, I think, I was meant to find creepy. I didn’t. I found the governess’s instant ‘they’re such perfect angelic little cherubs!’ attitude worrying – it’s a deeply unhealthy attitude for anyone working with children to have – but the children themselves simply weren’t scary. Miles was weird and he spoke like a grandad, but it was more irritating than sinister. He never creeped me out but I did keep thinking that his dialogue was better suited to somebody wearing velvet slippers and smoking a pipe. (Sidenote: any woman who allows herself to be refered to as ‘my dear’ by a ten-year-old will get no sympathy from me ever). Of course a massive part of while the adult-child relationships didn’t work for me is because of the values and expectations in the time this was written and that, since The Turn of the Screw, creepy children have become rather a staple of the horror genre. By my modern standards Miles doesn’t read as normal but he was hardly creepy enough to be creepy; he just came off as a child written by somebody who couldn’t write children (unfair, I know, and almost certainly untrue, but that’s how he came across). So with neither the ghosts or the creepy children providing me with scares I was left with an awkward little story written by an unreliable narrator whose writing style I didn’t particularly like.

As a result although I know that this is hugely influential story and that many people love it, and find it absolutely tense and atmospheric and everything the blurb claims, I just failed to click with it on every level. It was ‘interesting’, I suppose, and I’m sure I could have some wonderful debates about the story – but I would enjoy them much more than I enjoyed the actual reading of it.

Owen Wingrave I much prefered. It’s a lot less of a ghost story – the supernatural element being more of a deus ex machina than anything else – and it’s certainly not a scary ghost story, but I felt a lot more invested and interested in the characters than I did in The Turn of the Screw, probably because they felt more realistic. Essentially though it’s an anti-military, anti-violence fable. Owen Wingrave, the sole male descendent of a deeply military family decides to quit the army after deciding that war is a repugnant and needless activity that he wants no part of. His family and his implied love interest disapprove and aspersions are made against his bravery. Conveniently enough for everybody involved though there’s a haunted room in the house where not even the bravest soldiers of the family have dared spend a night! It’s all a bit neat and convenient and the ghost story element of it really is just a slightly clumsy tool for the moral of the tale, which could probably have been delivered better with a more mundane example of bravery (there are plenty of ways for a pacifist to prove bravery or ‘worth’ that don’t involve ghosts). The ending is rather abrupt too but it’s a nice little story none the less.

Over all though my experience with this book wasn’t at all what I’d hoped. I think I probably expected a bit much from it, but even without those disappointed expectations I don’t think I’d ever class either of these two stories as particularly great examples of the ghost story genre – the master of which I’d say is actually M.R. James.

[Adia]

I found the old English difficult to get through.
"This was not so good a thing, I admit, as not to leave me to judge that what, essentially, made nothing else much signify was simply my charming work."
I'm still not sure I really understand what that says, and this tiresome sentence is a perfect representation of the rest of the book.

[Darby · Rating 3 out of 5]

Only read The Turn of the Screw and not the second story included in this volume. Meh.

[Santiago Roque do Vale · Rating 3 out of 5]

“I welcomed the consciousness that I was charged with much to do, and I caused it to be known as well that, left thus to myself, I was quite remarkably firm.”

“after all he had a right to his ideas - (…) he was of a substance too fine to be handled with blunt fingers.”

2 em 1:
1. há quem não goste de uma boa história sobre criancinhas demoníacas?
2. dead militants society :€

3 de 5 pela escrita monótona e arrastada / pode ser que seja apenas eu que não goste tanto deste género de literatura (experimentem!)

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first time I read Turn of the Screw, I didn't get it. I went in expecting a good, but straightforward gothic story where I relate to and root for the governess as she tries to find her place in a spooky, old mansion. But I got quickly frustrated with the unnamed hero of James' story. She makes wild assumptions, jumps to conclusions, and makes everything worse with her horrible lack of communication. I didn't realize that that's exactly the point.

I knew that I had to be missing something though, so I looked at some other criticism of the novella and learned about the theory that the ghosts are all in the governess' head. Whether or not that's what's really going on, it was helpful for at least questioning the reliability of her as a narrator. It introduced me to the essential subtext of the story that I wasn't even looking for on my first reading.

Rather than go back to the book right away, I watched some film adaptations to see how they handled the ambiguity. The most useful of them was Jack Clayton's The Innocents starring Deborah Kerr. Or to be fair: it was Christopher Frayling's commentary on the Criterion edition that most helped me find the balance I wanted between ghost story and psychological thriller. Frayling points out that Clayton worked hard to avoid making a definite statement about the reality of the ghosts. He wanted viewers to be able to have it either way. With that in mind, I went back to Henry James and enjoyed the book a lot more.

I think the ghosts have to be real. The governess sees and describes them to housekeeper Mrs Grose, who then confirms that the descriptions match deceased employees of the estate. The Innocents preserves ambiguity by having the governess see a picture of one of the employees before seeing his ghost, but that's not in the book. It could have happened behind-the-scenes, but that's reading more into the text than James puts there.

So as far as I'm concerned, the only explanation is that the ghosts exist. But the governess absolutely makes the situation worse through her actions, caused by her own, distressing hangups about the children. That's a horrifying balance I can get my head around, so with that in mind, I'm going to be watching and re-watching some adaptations again.

My volume of Turn of the Screw also includes James' short story, "Owen Wingrave." It's simultaneously more straightforward than Turn of the Screw, but also even more ambiguous about whether there's really a ghost. I enjoyed it a lot.

[Eva · Rating 3 out of 5]

Det här är en mycket omtalad historia som analyserats och granskat otaliga gånger från alla möjliga håll. Men jag har alltså inte läst den förrän nu. Spökhistorier är egentligen inget för mig. Och här blir jag så irriterad på att allt bygger på att folk inte vågar säga vad de menar rakt ut. Alltså typiskt viktorianskt hämmat.

Eftersom jag lever i den tid jag lever i, 2021, så blir känslan för mig att det som ligger under ytan och inte uttalas, handlar om 'pedofili'. Det är den enda förklaring jag kan ge. Oförmågan att få barnen att 'berätta' och bete sig 'normalt'. När historien skrevs trodde man fortfarande på 'hysteri' som en kvinnlig åkomma, men historien som påhittad av guvernanten, hysterisk eller inte, blir inte begriplig för mig. ... Den andra möjliga populära tolkningen idag, skulle annars vara tron på spöken i form av utomjordingar.

[Federico · Rating 4 out of 5]

Seccante l'enfatico inglese della governante con tutti i suoi corsivi, ma magistrale James nel prendere le distanze dalla narratrice in modo che non capiamo mai quale sia la sua opinione su ciò che veramente succede. (Anche alle ultime due parole non riuscivo a credere.) Resta una storia di fantasmi, ma forse l'unica versione seria possibile.

[Tracy]

I actually had no idea what I was getting into when I started this book. I was looking forward a short quick read by a good author and it turns out I chose a ghost story and psychological thriller (not my favourite genre). But engaging and well written. And it helped me stay on track for my book goals this year.

[low.light.reads · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm a person that wants to love all the classics that find interesting. This one was ok and I enjoyed it, but it's not something that I will remembered for long. I get why it's a classic, but something in the writing didn't click with me.

[Becky G · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'd like to say that I enjoyed this, being the lover of Gothic fiction that I am, but unfortunately I can't.
It just didn't have the edge or suspense I wished it did. Also the ending didn't save it for me.
Very sad 💔

[Maddy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked the supernatural or the ghost aspect of this book very much. I haven’t red Owen Wingrave yet but will read it at some point in the future. I think it would be nice to reread/listen to it . I recommend this book

[Kalet · Rating 3 out of 5]

watched the movie after and id recommend this story in film over print. the prose was too dramatized without actual impact. at points it was even a bit gritting how emotional the characters were- but it film it was perfect for setting an eerie tone.

[Niki E · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was pretty painful to read. 200 words in place of two, and long blocks of text without paragraph breaks. The dialogue, though, was direct and engaging.

[Maddie Soo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Did not take anything in

[abhi · Rating 2 out of 5]

it was ok. kinda lame

[Jane Kulevich · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.7

[Zoe Brame · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not a big fan of James’ writing style. Decided against reading the second short story.

[Jordan Simmonds · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely loved these two stories. Turn of the Screw was amazing it was truly a psychological thriller of the highest calibre. was on the edge of my seat to read them.