The Turn of the Screw and the Lesson of the Master

Henry James (1843-1916) is one of America's premier writers of fiction. His famous novella The Turn of the Screw (1898), concerning the governess of two small children who thinks that her charges are being haunted by ghosts, brilliantly illustrates James's theory of the horror story: to suggest rather than state horror. A true psychological thriller as well as an acute study of obsession, The Turn of the Screw leaves open whether the children are being "corrupted" by malevolent spirits or by their neurotic governess.