Ghosts in December, 18 May 2008
It's been over a hundred years since Henry James' novella was published. I'm sure readers at the time were spooked by its tale of ghosts threatening the innocence of two children, and the attempts of a quasi-hysterical governess to save them. It was that period of the Victorian era when séances and ghosts were popular, when spiritists promised to bridge the road between the living and the dead. People enjoyed sitting around a fire and sharing ghost stories, specially during Christmas time.

But times have changed and this novella is now more interesting as a controversial piece of lit crit rather than a frightening ghost story. Did the ghosts in the story really exist? Or was it all part of the governess' imagination? You are never given the answers. One interesting question which resonates with today's world is what kind of "evil" was inflicted on the children. It's suggested that a deceased governess and her lover did "depraved" things to the children, only to later return as ghosts in order to continue their evil influence. But what kind of evil exactly?

If you enjoy puzzles and hard-to-read English writing, this novella is for you; if you are after an easy page-turner, you are better off looking elsewhere.

Screw turner not Page turner, 07 Dec 2007
And this is the author who dared to belittle Thomas Hardy. Henry James, born of insipid wealth and Hardy, wrought of the brown Wessex earth, and so their writing shows.

Turn of the Screw is a novel that could only be written by James. Which is to say that if a room full of socialite closet homosexual virgins with infinite typewriters were allowed infinite time to come up with a spooky story, this would be the inevitable result.

James' pathological will to translate the world's broadest language into the prose equivalent of C++ code is on show at the height of its powers here. Marvel at 5 page diatribes that could otherwise be summed up as "She saw a man and he saw her". Gasp at 50 word sentences that translate as "Oh what a beautiful child he was; and oh what a beautiful child she was; and oh what a beautful..." Oh what's the point.

The point is that Henry James is every bit the author that deserves raucous deliberation amongst the Oxbridge set as they blaze through their short-lived literary phases, prior to a career in private equity. James is also every bit a writer that merits insecure puzzlement from everyone else (its not you its HIM).

Apparently this is a spine-chiller. Hilariously having assumed this category, it has the timeless excuse that people, you know, "in those days" would've found it chilling. Because, of course, people in those days were all Mr Darcy types who shielded wilting debutantes from the most villanous of stiff breezes.

Personally i prefer to think of turn of the century readers of Turn of the Screw frowing the same frown, yawning the same yawn, then rolling over for the same night's sleep as i did.



Atmospheric, 01 Nov 2007
I almost gave up on this tale but persevered because a trusted friend had told me that it would be worth it. She was correct. Wow! What a chilling ghost story. It has a very atmospheric setting, in a country home in England, during the 1840s. The tale begins with friends chatting round a fire. One of the group begins to tell a tale about a governess who was employed in the home to look after two young children. Their guardian, who is their Uncle, tells her he wants nothing to do with her or the children, and that she mustn't bother him. The governess begins to see two ghosts, whom she believes are the previous governess and her lover. She thinks these ghosts are meaning to harm the children. The children claim to not be able to see any ghosts and the rest of the household staff are equally bemused. The reader is left wondering whether the governess is suffering from delusions, or genuinely needs to save the children from the ghosts. The final pages had me gripped and the ending left me breathless.






One good turn., 04 Apr 2007
I adore this book! I have read it so many times I need a new copy. This is definitely not a pleasant read, it is disturbing. It is in the skillful writing of James that creates a gripping story that leaves more questions & mystery on each new read. This ia a classic gothic tale that all fans of the genre should read.

The big book of commas, 18 Oct 2006
What becomes apparent upon first opening the book is that Henry James loves commas. Each long winded sentence ,seems, to stretch for half a page, which, without wanting to the press the point,makes,a very slow,hard to read novel.
The opening was promising! I thought the author wrote in such a style as to create suspense in the reader until i found myself dying to hear the story (the book is in the format of a tale read by an arbitrary character to a group of friends). But when the story begun, i realised that this was in fact not a deliberate attempt to create suspense, but instead was just the way in which James writes!
I was required to read this for an english literature course, and cannot see how anyone would want to read this for leisure. It realy is an uphill struggle, and even being an avid literature fan myself, i had to sit with a dictionary and look up every second word.
The plot does not make up for the battle one must put themselves through to reach the end of the book. Perhaps at the time the book was a shocking "ghost story" of a tale. But it stirred no feeling in me, was far too descriptive of mundane things with distracted from the plot, and was ,to put it plainly, boring.
I had hoped that the end would redeem the book, but without giving anything away, i was extremely dissapointed.

All in all a very difficult to read book which provided me with no enjoyment whatsoever.

Ghosts in December, 18 May 2008
It's been over a hundred years since Henry James' novella was published. I'm sure readers at the time were spooked by its tale of ghosts threatening the innocence of two children, and the attempts of a quasi-hysterical governess to save them. It was that period of the Victorian era when séances and ghosts were popular, when spiritists promised to bridge the road between the living and the dead. People enjoyed sitting around a fire and sharing ghost stories, specially during Christmas time.

But times have changed and this novella is now more interesting as a controversial piece of lit crit rather than a frightening ghost story. Did the ghosts in the story really exist? Or was it all part of the governess' imagination? You are never given the answers. One interesting question which resonates with today's world is what kind of "evil" was inflicted on the children. It's suggested that a deceased governess and her lover did "depraved" things to the children, only to later return as ghosts in order to continue their evil influence. But what kind of evil exactly?

If you enjoy puzzles and hard-to-read English writing, this novella is for you; if you are after an easy page-turner, you are better off looking elsewhere.

Screw turner not Page turner, 07 Dec 2007
And this is the author who dared to belittle Thomas Hardy. Henry James, born of insipid wealth and Hardy, wrought of the brown Wessex earth, and so their writing shows.

Turn of the Screw is a novel that could only be written by James. Which is to say that if a room full of socialite closet homosexual virgins with infinite typewriters were allowed infinite time to come up with a spooky story, this would be the inevitable result.

James' pathological will to translate the world's broadest language into the prose equivalent of C++ code is on show at the height of its powers here. Marvel at 5 page diatribes that could otherwise be summed up as "She saw a man and he saw her". Gasp at 50 word sentences that translate as "Oh what a beautiful child he was; and oh what a beautiful child she was; and oh what a beautful..." Oh what's the point.

The point is that Henry James is every bit the author that deserves raucous deliberation amongst the Oxbridge set as they blaze through their short-lived literary phases, prior to a career in private equity. James is also every bit a writer that merits insecure puzzlement from everyone else (its not you its HIM).

Apparently this is a spine-chiller. Hilariously having assumed this category, it has the timeless excuse that people, you know, "in those days" would've found it chilling. Because, of course, people in those days were all Mr Darcy types who shielded wilting debutantes from the most villanous of stiff breezes.

Personally i prefer to think of turn of the century readers of Turn of the Screw frowing the same frown, yawning the same yawn, then rolling over for the same night's sleep as i did.



Atmospheric, 01 Nov 2007
I almost gave up on this tale but persevered because a trusted friend had told me that it would be worth it. She was correct. Wow! What a chilling ghost story. It has a very atmospheric setting, in a country home in England, during the 1840s. The tale begins with friends chatting round a fire. One of the group begins to tell a tale about a governess who was employed in the home to look after two young children. Their guardian, who is their Uncle, tells her he wants nothing to do with her or the children, and that she mustn't bother him. The governess begins to see two ghosts, whom she believes are the previous governess and her lover. She thinks these ghosts are meaning to harm the children. The children claim to not be able to see any ghosts and the rest of the household staff are equally bemused. The reader is left wondering whether the governess is suffering from delusions, or genuinely needs to save the children from the ghosts. The final pages had me gripped and the ending left me breathless.






One good turn., 04 Apr 2007
I adore this book! I have read it so many times I need a new copy. This is definitely not a pleasant read, it is disturbing. It is in the skillful writing of James that creates a gripping story that leaves more questions & mystery on each new read. This ia a classic gothic tale that all fans of the genre should read.

The big book of commas, 18 Oct 2006
What becomes apparent upon first opening the book is that Henry James loves commas. Each long winded sentence ,seems, to stretch for half a page, which, without wanting to the press the point,makes,a very slow,hard to read novel.
The opening was promising! I thought the author wrote in such a style as to create suspense in the reader until i found myself dying to hear the story (the book is in the format of a tale read by an arbitrary character to a group of friends). But when the story begun, i realised that this was in fact not a deliberate attempt to create suspense, but instead was just the way in which James writes!
I was required to read this for an english literature course, and cannot see how anyone would want to read this for leisure. It realy is an uphill struggle, and even being an avid literature fan myself, i had to sit with a dictionary and look up every second word.
The plot does not make up for the battle one must put themselves through to reach the end of the book. Perhaps at the time the book was a shocking "ghost story" of a tale. But it stirred no feeling in me, was far too descriptive of mundane things with distracted from the plot, and was ,to put it plainly, boring.
I had hoped that the end would redeem the book, but without giving anything away, i was extremely dissapointed.

All in all a very difficult to read book which provided me with no enjoyment whatsoever.

Terrifying ghost story, 27 Jun 2008
Unlike some of the other reviewers here I still think this is the creepiest book I've ever read, and all the more terrifying for the fact that James never articulates what's going on - he simply leaves your imagination to float free and conjure up all your worse nightmares. Yes, he's never an easy read (though this is far more accessible than Wings of the Dove, The Golden Bowl etc) but I think his very stately, mannered sentences and diction actually add to the horror of the story. Don't read this if you're expecting Stephen King or The Exorcist - James expects his readers to make the effort to read properly. Someone called this (possibly James himself?)'the most poisonous little tale I could imagine' and I think that's a perfect description - when I re-read it, it was on the tube with bright lights and lots of people around as I couldn't face reading it at home alone!

chilling, disturbing, eerie - definitely worth perservering, 31 Dec 1999
Outwardly the novella appears to be a straightforward ghost story, narrated by the governess the 'victim' of this story A governess is offered the position of taking under her care two small charges - brother and sister - whose parents have passed away. Their uncle whom is their legal guardian assigns them to the care and protection of a young governess twenty years of age.

Placed in supreme authority of the big ramnbling country house over the children and servants - the young governess becomes aware of malevolent presences within and around the house. She sees the ghosts of the previous valet and governess both of whom passed away a while back. Convinced the two ghosts are after the souls of her two young charges, she resorts to desperate measures and round the clock care to keep the children safe and solve the mystery of the relationship between the previous inhabitants and her dependants.

However a disturbing relationship develops between her and that of her sole charges - most noticably Miles, the young boy. It is this eerie theme of sexual and social unrest that makes the novel so disturbing. Much of the novel is told through the viewpoint of the governess. It is only by studying the dialogues between her and her charges that the truth, her behaviour, her ulterior motives, finally becomes apparent.

Henry James does a fine job of creating an eerie atmosphere, keeping the reader in suspense. His delicate allusions to the strange forces of evil keep the plot from becoming obvious. A second reading of the novel is essential in order to realise fully the truth that is constantly hinted at throughout the novel.

The Turn of the Screw succeeds due to its ambiguity and projection of mental imbalance, all the more powerful as events are told from the governess' viewpoint. The reader has to sift and judge the account on an objective basis in order to be able to perceive the truth.

Ghosts in December, 18 May 2008
It's been over a hundred years since Henry James' novella was published. I'm sure readers at the time were spooked by its tale of ghosts threatening the innocence of two children, and the attempts of a quasi-hysterical governess to save them. It was that period of the Victorian era when séances and ghosts were popular, when spiritists promised to bridge the road between the living and the dead. People enjoyed sitting around a fire and sharing ghost stories, specially during Christmas time.

But times have changed and this novella is now more interesting as a controversial piece of lit crit rather than a frightening ghost story. Did the ghosts in the story really exist? Or was it all part of the governess' imagination? You are never given the answers. One interesting question which resonates with today's world is what kind of "evil" was inflicted on the children. It's suggested that a deceased governess and her lover did "depraved" things to the children, only to later return as ghosts in order to continue their evil influence. But what kind of evil exactly?

If you enjoy puzzles and hard-to-read English writing, this novella is for you; if you are after an easy page-turner, you are better off looking elsewhere.

Screw turner not Page turner, 07 Dec 2007
And this is the author who dared to belittle Thomas Hardy. Henry James, born of insipid wealth and Hardy, wrought of the brown Wessex earth, and so their writing shows.

Turn of the Screw is a novel that could only be written by James. Which is to say that if a room full of socialite closet homosexual virgins with infinite typewriters were allowed infinite time to come up with a spooky story, this would be the inevitable result.

James' pathological will to translate the world's broadest language into the prose equivalent of C++ code is on show at the height of its powers here. Marvel at 5 page diatribes that could otherwise be summed up as "She saw a man and he saw her". Gasp at 50 word sentences that translate as "Oh what a beautiful child he was; and oh what a beautiful child she was; and oh what a beautful..." Oh what's the point.

The point is that Henry James is every bit the author that deserves raucous deliberation amongst the Oxbridge set as they blaze through their short-lived literary phases, prior to a career in private equity. James is also every bit a writer that merits insecure puzzlement from everyone else (its not you its HIM).

Apparently this is a spine-chiller. Hilariously having assumed this category, it has the timeless excuse that people, you know, "in those days" would've found it chilling. Because, of course, people in those days were all Mr Darcy types who shielded wilting debutantes from the most villanous of stiff breezes.

Personally i prefer to think of turn of the century readers of Turn of the Screw frowing the same frown, yawning the same yawn, then rolling over for the same night's sleep as i did.



Atmospheric, 01 Nov 2007
I almost gave up on this tale but persevered because a trusted friend had told me that it would be worth it. She was correct. Wow! What a chilling ghost story. It has a very atmospheric setting, in a country home in England, during the 1840s. The tale begins with friends chatting round a fire. One of the group begins to tell a tale about a governess who was employed in the home to look after two young children. Their guardian, who is their Uncle, tells her he wants nothing to do with her or the children, and that she mustn't bother him. The governess begins to see two ghosts, whom she believes are the previous governess and her lover. She thinks these ghosts are meaning to harm the children. The children claim to not be able to see any ghosts and the rest of the household staff are equally bemused. The reader is left wondering whether the governess is suffering from delusions, or genuinely needs to save the children from the ghosts. The final pages had me gripped and the ending left me breathless.






One good turn., 04 Apr 2007
I adore this book! I have read it so many times I need a new copy. This is definitely not a pleasant read, it is disturbing. It is in the skillful writing of James that creates a gripping story that leaves more questions & mystery on each new read. This ia a classic gothic tale that all fans of the genre should read.

The big book of commas, 18 Oct 2006
What becomes apparent upon first opening the book is that Henry James loves commas. Each long winded sentence ,seems, to stretch for half a page, which, without wanting to the press the point,makes,a very slow,hard to read novel.
The opening was promising! I thought the author wrote in such a style as to create suspense in the reader until i found myself dying to hear the story (the book is in the format of a tale read by an arbitrary character to a group of friends). But when the story begun, i realised that this was in fact not a deliberate attempt to create suspense, but instead was just the way in which James writes!
I was required to read this for an english literature course, and cannot see how anyone would want to read this for leisure. It realy is an uphill struggle, and even being an avid literature fan myself, i had to sit with a dictionary and look up every second word.
The plot does not make up for the battle one must put themselves through to reach the end of the book. Perhaps at the time the book was a shocking "ghost story" of a tale. But it stirred no feeling in me, was far too descriptive of mundane things with distracted from the plot, and was ,to put it plainly, boring.
I had hoped that the end would redeem the book, but without giving anything away, i was extremely dissapointed.

All in all a very difficult to read book which provided me with no enjoyment whatsoever.

Terrifying ghost story, 27 Jun 2008
Unlike some of the other reviewers here I still think this is the creepiest book I've ever read, and all the more terrifying for the fact that James never articulates what's going on - he simply leaves your imagination to float free and conjure up all your worse nightmares. Yes, he's never an easy read (though this is far more accessible than Wings of the Dove, The Golden Bowl etc) but I think his very stately, mannered sentences and diction actually add to the horror of the story. Don't read this if you're expecting Stephen King or The Exorcist - James expects his readers to make the effort to read properly. Someone called this (possibly James himself?)'the most poisonous little tale I could imagine' and I think that's a perfect description - when I re-read it, it was on the tube with bright lights and lots of people around as I couldn't face reading it at home alone!

chilling, disturbing, eerie - definitely worth perservering, 31 Dec 1999
Outwardly the novella appears to be a straightforward ghost story, narrated by the governess the 'victim' of this story A governess is offered the position of taking under her care two small charges - brother and sister - whose parents have passed away. Their uncle whom is their legal guardian assigns them to the care and protection of a young governess twenty years of age.

Placed in supreme authority of the big ramnbling country house over the children and servants - the young governess becomes aware of malevolent presences within and around the house. She sees the ghosts of the previous valet and governess both of whom passed away a while back. Convinced the two ghosts are after the souls of her two young charges, she resorts to desperate measures and round the clock care to keep the children safe and solve the mystery of the relationship between the previous inhabitants and her dependants.

However a disturbing relationship develops between her and that of her sole charges - most noticably Miles, the young boy. It is this eerie theme of sexual and social unrest that makes the novel so disturbing. Much of the novel is told through the viewpoint of the governess. It is only by studying the dialogues between her and her charges that the truth, her behaviour, her ulterior motives, finally becomes apparent.

Henry James does a fine job of creating an eerie atmosphere, keeping the reader in suspense. His delicate allusions to the strange forces of evil keep the plot from becoming obvious. A second reading of the novel is essential in order to realise fully the truth that is constantly hinted at throughout the novel.

The Turn of the Screw succeeds due to its ambiguity and projection of mental imbalance, all the more powerful as events are told from the governess' viewpoint. The reader has to sift and judge the account on an objective basis in order to be able to perceive the truth.

Different editions, 23 May 2008
Readers should note that the green Penguin Pocket Classics edition (and the old budget Popular Classics one to which this is the successor) use the original 1881 edition of the novel. James subsequently revised his work for the 1908 New York edition, and this latter one is used by most current paperback versions including Penguin's full-price Classics edition, along with those of Vintage and Wordsworth and others. Among many changes the final paragraph of the novel is substantially longer and less abrupt in the 1908 version.

Be careful what you ask for..., 28 Mar 2006
Re-reading this novel again so closely after reading Trollope's Can You Forgive Her? I can't help being struck by the similarity between Isobel Archer and Alice Vavasour. Both characters have financial freedom but crave social and spiritual freedom. Alice has the common sense to realise just in time, that her dependable John Grey, despite giving the appearance of a conventional man keen on a quiet life within the confines of what society expects, is far more likely to allow the freedom Alice craves, after their marriage.

Isabel Archer however, mistakes a bohemian lifestyle on offer with Osmond for the freedom she seeks. Her stubborness and to a certain extent, her inverted snobbery, prevent her from taking Lord Warburton seriously, a man ready and willing to allow her to live as she craves. Osmond plays Isabel like a harp, appearing to offer what she desires and then closing the door on life forever using the very social conventions and expectations that Isabel has feared she would find with Lord Warburton. It is superb writing. Compare this piece of art with it's cleverly calibrated plot and clearly drawn characters with rubbish like the Shadow of the Wind and you despair that people don't take the time to really read something worthwhile.

Henry James must have read Trollope's novel. He's taken the same basic story and converted it very skillfully for his own needs.
It's probably the best of Henry James' novels, so if you have limited time, read this one. The book's structure is nearly perfect, the writing is sublime in the same closely worked way that Jane Austen's prose enthralls. It's well worth the effort.

"The real offense was her having a mind of her own at all.", 13 Feb 2005
When Isabel Archer, a bright and independent young American, makes her first trip to Europe in the company of her aunt, Mrs. Touchett, who lives outside of London in a 400-year-old estate, she discovers a totally different world, one which does not encourage her independent thinking or behavior and which is governed by rigid social codes. This contrast between American and European values, vividly dramatized here, is a consistent theme in James's novels, one based on his own experiences living in the US and England. In prose that is filled with rich observations about places, customs, and attitudes, James portrays Isabel's European coming-of-age, as she discovers that she must curb her intellect and independence if she is to fit into the social scheme in which she now finds herself.

Isabel Archer, one of James's most fully drawn characters, has postponed a marriage in America for a year of travel abroad, only to discover upon her precipitate and ill-considered marriage to an American living in Florence, that it is her need to be independent that makes her marriage a disaster. Gilbert Osmond, an American art collector living in Florence, marries Isabel for the fortune she has inherited from her uncle, treating her like an object d'art which he expects to remain "on the shelf." Madame Serena Merle, his long-time lover, is, like Osmond, an American whose venality and lack of scruples have been encouraged, if not developed, by the European milieu in which they live.

James packs more information into one paragraph than many writers do in an entire chapter. Distanced and formal, he presents psychologically realistic characters whose behavior is a direct outgrowth of their upbringing, with their conflicts resulting from the differences between their expectations and the reality of their changed settings. The subordinate characters, Ralph Touchett, Pansy Osmond, her suitor Edward Rosier, American journalist Henrietta Stackpole, Isabel's former suitor Caspar Stackpole, and Lord Warburton, whose love of Isabel leads him to court Pansy, are as fascinating psychologically and as much a product of their own upbringing as is Isabel.

As the setting moves from America to England, Paris, Florence, and Rome, James develops his themes, and as Isabel's life becomes more complex, her increasingly difficult and emotionally affecting choices about her life make her increasingly fascinating to the reader. James's trenchant observations about the relationship between individuals and society and about the effects of one's setting on one's behavior are enhanced by the elegance and density of his prose, making this a novel one must read slowly--and savor. Mary Whipple

Did she jump or was she pushed, 01 Nov 2001
James is keen to bring to the readers attention that he wishes for Isabel to have unlimited freedom to be what she wants to be. The central theme of the novel is Isabels indecision over what she should do with her life she admitts to Osmond that she changes her mind every day as to what to she should do with her life. It as if she is a blue print needing to be stamped by another ,unlike Henrietta Stackpole, she is unable to take responsibility for her own actions.

The reason that it hard for the reader to have sympathy with Isabels predictment in her miserable marriage to Osmond. Is that in some respects she finds it romantic to suffer in her opinion the quest for greater knowledge can only be gained by suffering. She longs for passion and fulfillment but if she accepted Casper Goodwoods proposal it would be too easy, she would no longer have control and she would have to emotionally respond in a relationship.

Osmond is sterile, controlling and one dimensional but Isabel gives very little indication that she is any different. The sterile world of Osmonds is a sanctionary away from the realities of love and life. Isabel belives that she has a greater mind than her peers. The power games that she engages with Osborne not only only gives him superiority but provides Isabel with a mission.

If Isabel had a true intellect she would stand up to Osborne as she knows what he is about but as with many battered women the lure of the beast is an all consuming passion. She doesn't love Osborne but she is passionate about understanding him. She has money and good frends who are not conventional.The excuse that she had no option but to stay with Osborne because of the restrictions on women of the time do not apply here. The truth is that she wants to stay she enjoys the restrcitions of their narrow life. She admitts to Goodwood' the world is very small' which in essence is how Osborne views life perhpas they have meet their match in each other.
There could be hope for Isabel in the form of Casper Goodwood but it is in his hands. Isabel likes to be controlled. Henrietta is wise but kind, ' just you wait' she echos at Goodwoods disappointment at finding Isabel gone, she knows the romance could suceed but it depends on whether Goodwood is prepared to wait. For freedom in life is the last thing that Isabel truely wants. James challenged her restrictive nature by giving her the world.

Ghosts in December, 18 May 2008
It's been over a hundred years since Henry James' novella was published. I'm sure readers at the time were spooked by its tale of ghosts threatening the innocence of two children, and the attempts of a quasi-hysterical governess to save them. It was that period of the Victorian era when séances and ghosts were popular, when spiritists promised to bridge the road between the living and the dead. People enjoyed sitting around a fire and sharing ghost stories, specially during Christmas time.

But times have changed and this novella is now more interesting as a controversial piece of lit crit rather than a frightening ghost story. Did the ghosts in the story really exist? Or was it all part of the governess' imagination? You are never given the answers. One interesting question which resonates with today's world is what kind of "evil" was inflicted on the children. It's suggested that a deceased governess and her lover did "depraved" things to the children, only to later return as ghosts in order to continue their evil influence. But what kind of evil exactly?

If you enjoy puzzles and hard-to-read English writing, this novella is for you; if you are after an easy page-turner, you are better off looking elsewhere.

Screw turner not Page turner, 07 Dec 2007
And this is the author who dared to belittle Thomas Hardy. Henry James, born of insipid wealth and Hardy, wrought of the brown Wessex earth, and so their writing shows.

Turn of the Screw is a novel that could only be written by James. Which is to say that if a room full of socialite closet homosexual virgins with infinite typewriters were allowed infinite time to come up with a spooky story, this would be the inevitable result.

James' pathological will to translate the world's broadest language into the prose equivalent of C++ code is on show at the height of its powers here. Marvel at 5 page diatribes that could otherwise be summed up as "She saw a man and he saw her". Gasp at 50 word sentences that translate as "Oh what a beautiful child he was; and oh what a beautiful child she was; and oh what a beautful..." Oh what's the point.

The point is that Henry James is every bit the author that deserves raucous deliberation amongst the Oxbridge set as they blaze through their short-lived literary phases, prior to a career in private equity. James is also every bit a writer that merits insecure puzzlement from everyone else (its not you its HIM).

Apparently this is a spine-chiller. Hilariously having assumed this category, it has the timeless excuse that people, you know, "in those days" would've found it chilling. Because, of course, people in those days were all Mr Darcy types who shielded wilting debutantes from the most villanous of stiff breezes.

Personally i prefer to think of turn of the century readers of Turn of the Screw frowing the same frown, yawning the same yawn, then rolling over for the same night's sleep as i did.



Atmospheric, 01 Nov 2007
I almost gave up on this tale but persevered because a trusted friend had told me that it would be worth it. She was correct. Wow! What a chilling ghost story. It has a very atmospheric setting, in a country home in England, during the 1840s. The tale begins with friends chatting round a fire. One of the group begins to tell a tale about a governess who was employed in the home to look after two young children. Their guardian, who is their Uncle, tells her he wants nothing to do with her or the children, and that she mustn't bother him. The governess begins to see two ghosts, whom she believes are the previous governess and her lover. She thinks these ghosts are meaning to harm the children. The children claim to not be able to see any ghosts and the rest of the household staff are equally bemused. The reader is left wondering whether the governess is suffering from delusions, or genuinely needs to save the children from the ghosts. The final pages had me gripped and the ending left me breathless.






One good turn., 04 Apr 2007
I adore this book! I have read it so many times I need a new copy. This is definitely not a pleasant read, it is disturbing. It is in the skillful writing of James that creates a gripping story that leaves more questions & mystery on each new read. This ia a classic gothic tale that all fans of the genre should read.

The big book of commas, 18 Oct 2006
What becomes apparent upon first opening the book is that Henry James loves commas. Each long winded sentence ,seems, to stretch for half a page, which, without wanting to the press the point,makes,a very slow,hard to read novel.
The opening was promising! I thought the author wrote in such a style as to create suspense in the reader until i found myself dying to hear the story (the book is in the format of a tale read by an arbitrary character to a group of friends). But when the story begun, i realised that this was in fact not a deliberate attempt to create suspense, but instead was just the way in which James writes!
I was required to read this for an english literature course, and cannot see how anyone would want to read this for leisure. It realy is an uphill struggle, and even being an avid literature fan myself, i had to sit with a dictionary and look up every second word.
The plot does not make up for the battle one must put themselves through to reach the end of the book. Perhaps at the time the book was a shocking "ghost story" of a tale. But it stirred no feeling in me, was far too descriptive of mundane things with distracted from the plot, and was ,to put it plainly, boring.
I had hoped that the end would redeem the book, but without giving anything away, i was extremely dissapointed.

All in all a very difficult to read book which provided me with no enjoyment whatsoever.

Terrifying ghost story, 27 Jun 2008
Unlike some of the other reviewers here I still think this is the creepiest book I've ever read, and all the more terrifying for the fact that James never articulates what's going on - he simply leaves your imagination to float free and conjure up all your worse nightmares. Yes, he's never an easy read (though this is far more accessible than Wings of the Dove, The Golden Bowl etc) but I think his very stately, mannered sentences and diction actually add to the horror of the story. Don't read this if you're expecting Stephen King or The Exorcist - James expects his readers to make the effort to read properly. Someone called this (possibly James himself?)'the most poisonous little tale I could imagine' and I think that's a perfect description - when I re-read it, it was on the tube with bright lights and lots of people around as I couldn't face reading it at home alone!

chilling, disturbing, eerie - definitely worth perservering, 31 Dec 1999
Outwardly the novella appears to be a straightforward ghost story, narrated by the governess the 'victim' of this story A governess is offered the position of taking under her care two small charges - brother and sister - whose parents have passed away. Their uncle whom is their legal guardian assigns them to the care and protection of a young governess twenty years of age.

Placed in supreme authority of the big ramnbling country house over the children and servants - the young governess becomes aware of malevolent presences within and around the house. She sees the ghosts of the previous valet and governess both of whom passed away a while back. Convinced the two ghosts are after the souls of her two young charges, she resorts to desperate measures and round the clock care to keep the children safe and solve the mystery of the relationship between the previous inhabitants and her dependants.

However a disturbing relationship develops between her and that of her sole charges - most noticably Miles, the young boy. It is this eerie theme of sexual and social unrest that makes the novel so disturbing. Much of the novel is told through the viewpoint of the governess. It is only by studying the dialogues between her and her charges that the truth, her behaviour, her ulterior motives, finally becomes apparent.

Henry James does a fine job of creating an eerie atmosphere, keeping the reader in suspense. His delicate allusions to the strange forces of evil keep the plot from becoming obvious. A second reading of the novel is essential in order to realise fully the truth that is constantly hinted at throughout the novel.

The Turn of the Screw succeeds due to its ambiguity and projection of mental imbalance, all the more powerful as events are told from the governess' viewpoint. The reader has to sift and judge the account on an objective basis in order to be able to perceive the truth.

Different editions, 23 May 2008
Readers should note that the green Penguin Pocket Classics edition (and the old budget Popular Classics one to which this is the successor) use the original 1881 edition of the novel. James subsequently revised his work for the 1908 New York edition, and this latter one is used by most current paperback versions including Penguin's full-price Classics edition, along with those of Vintage and Wordsworth and others. Among many changes the final paragraph of the novel is substantially longer and less abrupt in the 1908 version.

Be careful what you ask for..., 28 Mar 2006
Re-reading this novel again so closely after reading Trollope's Can You Forgive Her? I can't help being struck by the similarity between Isobel Archer and Alice Vavasour. Both characters have financial freedom but crave social and spiritual freedom. Alice has the common sense to realise just in time, that her dependable John Grey, despite giving the appearance of a conventional man keen on a quiet life within the confines of what society expects, is far more likely to allow the freedom Alice craves, after their marriage.

Isabel Archer however, mistakes a bohemian lifestyle on offer with Osmond for the freedom she seeks. Her stubborness and to a certain extent, her inverted snobbery, prevent her from taking Lord Warburton seriously, a man ready and willing to allow her to live as she craves. Osmond plays Isabel like a harp, appearing to offer what she desires and then closing the door on life forever using the very social conventions and expectations that Isabel has feared she would find with Lord Warburton. It is superb writing. Compare this piece of art with it's cleverly calibrated plot and clearly drawn characters with rubbish like the Shadow of the Wind and you despair that people don't take the time to really read something worthwhile.

Henry James must have read Trollope's novel. He's taken the same basic story and converted it very skillfully for his own needs.
It's probably the best of Henry James' novels, so if you have limited time, read this one. The book's structure is nearly perfect, the writing is sublime in the same closely worked way that Jane Austen's prose enthralls. It's well worth the effort.

"The real offense was her having a mind of her own at all.", 13 Feb 2005
When Isabel Archer, a bright and independent young American, makes her first trip to Europe in the company of her aunt, Mrs. Touchett, who lives outside of London in a 400-year-old estate, she discovers a totally different world, one which does not encourage her independent thinking or behavior and which is governed by rigid social codes. This contrast between American and European values, vividly dramatized here, is a consistent theme in James's novels, one based on his own experiences living in the US and England. In prose that is filled with rich observations about places, customs, and attitudes, James portrays Isabel's European coming-of-age, as she discovers that she must curb her intellect and independence if she is to fit into the social scheme in which she now finds herself.

Isabel Archer, one of James's most fully drawn characters, has postponed a marriage in America for a year of travel abroad, only to discover upon her precipitate and ill-considered marriage to an American living in Florence, that it is her need to be independent that makes her marriage a disaster. Gilbert Osmond, an American art collector living in Florence, marries Isabel for the fortune she has inherited from her uncle, treating her like an object d'art which he expects to remain "on the shelf." Madame Serena Merle, his long-time lover, is, like Osmond, an American whose venality and lack of scruples have been encouraged, if not developed, by the European milieu in which they live.

James packs more information into one paragraph than many writers do in an entire chapter. Distanced and formal, he presents psychologically realistic characters whose behavior is a direct outgrowth of their upbringing, with their conflicts resulting from the differences between their expectations and the reality of their changed settings. The subordinate characters, Ralph Touchett, Pansy Osmond, her suitor Edward Rosier, American journalist Henrietta Stackpole, Isabel's former suitor Caspar Stackpole, and Lord Warburton, whose love of Isabel leads him to court Pansy, are as fascinating psychologically and as much a product of their own upbringing as is Isabel.

As the setting moves from America to England, Paris, Florence, and Rome, James develops his themes, and as Isabel's life becomes more complex, her increasingly difficult and emotionally affecting choices about her life make her increasingly fascinating to the reader. James's trenchant observations about the relationship between individuals and society and about the effects of one's setting on one's behavior are enhanced by the elegance and density of his prose, making this a novel one must read slowly--and savor. Mary Whipple

Did she jump or was she pushed, 01 Nov 2001
James is keen to bring to the readers attention that he wishes for Isabel to have unlimited freedom to be what she wants to be. The central theme of the novel is Isabels indecision over what she should do with her life she admitts to Osmond that she changes her mind every day as to what to she should do with her life. It as if she is a blue print needing to be stamped by another ,unlike Henrietta Stackpole, she is unable to take responsibility for her own actions.

The reason that it hard for the reader to have sympathy with Isabels predictment in her miserable marriage to Osmond. Is that in some respects she finds it romantic to suffer in her opinion the quest for greater knowledge can only be gained by suffering. She longs for passion and fulfillment but if she accepted Casper Goodwoods proposal it would be too easy, she would no longer have control and she would have to emotionally respond in a relationship.

Osmond is sterile, controlling and one dimensional but Isabel gives very little indication that she is any different. The sterile world of Osmonds is a sanctionary away from the realities of love and life. Isabel belives that she has a greater mind than her peers. The power games that she engages with Osborne not only only gives him superiority but provides Isabel with a mission.

If Isabel had a true intellect she would stand up to Osborne as she knows what he is about but as with many battered women the lure of the beast is an all consuming passion. She doesn't love Osborne but she is passionate about understanding him. She has money and good frends who are not conventional.The excuse that she had no option but to stay with Osborne because of the restrictions on women of the time do not apply here. The truth is that she wants to stay she enjoys the restrcitions of their narrow life. She admitts to Goodwood' the world is very small' which in essence is how Osborne views life perhpas they have meet their match in each other.
There could be hope for Isabel in the form of Casper Goodwood but it is in his hands. Isabel likes to be controlled. Henrietta is wise but kind, ' just you wait' she echos at Goodwoods disappointment at finding Isabel gone, she knows the romance could suceed but it depends on whether Goodwood is prepared to wait. For freedom in life is the last thing that Isabel truely wants. James challenged her restrictive nature by giving her the world.

Terrifying tale, 27 Jun 2008
Unlike some of the other reviewers here I still think this is the creepiest book I've ever read, and all the more terrifying for the fact that James never articulates what's going on - he simply leaves your imagination to float free and conjure up all your worse nightmares. Yes, he's never an easy read (though this is far more accessible than Wings of the Dove, The Golden Bowl etc) but I think his very stately, mannered sentences and diction actually add to the horror of the story. Don't read this if you're expecting Stephen King or The Exorcist - James expects his readers to make the effort to read properly. Someone called this (possibly James himself?)'the most poisonous little tale I could imagine' and I think that's a perfect description - when I re-read it, it was on the tube with bright lights and lots of people around as I couldn't face reading it at home alone!

A good starting point for Henry James, 06 Feb 2008
I first became aware of Henry James when Colm Toibin released The Master. After The Master, I would have been happy never to hear of James again - it was a dull, dull book about an apparently dull, dull man. Imagine my ambivalence, then, when I was given a copy of The Aspern Papers and The Turning of the Screw...

But from a sense of duty, I did open the book. And I'm glad I did. Yes, Henry James does write some long and pompous sentences. In The Aspern Papers, these are forgivable since the narrator has to be a bit of a pompous man himself. I thought it worked less well in Screw, simply because it made the female private tutor seem, somehow, mannish. But where both tales excelled was in creating suspense and mystery. In Aspern, the suspense centres around a game of cat and mouse to persuade an aged former lover of the poet Jeffrey Aspern to part with her private writings and papers from Aspern; and in Screw it seems to concern the possession of two children by ghosts. In both, though, the eventual outcome is genuinely up for grabs right to the end with twists and turns aplenty.

The leitmotif is of repressed emotion. But unlike the portrayal in The Master, I got the feeling that James understood the whole gamut of human emotion very well. It must have taken a great sense of empathy, both with the characters to understand the emotions being surpressed, and also with the reader to understand how to create a welling feeling of hope, expectation and fear. Henry James seemed very much a man of the world - as he probably had to be, selling his work by installments in magazines.

I couldn't help noticing a similarity in style with Sheridan LeFanu, particularly in the ghostly theme of Screw. LeFanu also wrote a mixture of short stories, tales and novels, many of which had a deepening sense of mystery and forboding. I suspect LeFanu's writing style is often more acessible (i.e. shorter sentences) but there is also a tendency towards Victorian pomposity. The two writers also seemed to share a real need to set the narrator into a context - it was not enough to pitch in with the story, the narrator had to have a reason for telling it. This may seem rather outdated (although Neil Bartlett took it to new heights with Skin Lane this year), but it does have quite a charm to it.

Of the two tales, I much preferred The Aspern Papers, perhaps because it didn't rely on ghosts (although the old lady did claim to be 150) and thus created a surreal but conceivable world. It also seemed to twist more as the narrator found himself variously on the front foot and back foot, but always erring on the side of caution for fear of losing the prize. Screw is, perhaps, a bit more linear. But as an introduction to Henry James - and even one jaded by Toibin's unfortunate tribute - the two tales make an excellent starting point.

Mastery, 23 Mar 2001
Henry James shows himself as the great master of American short fiction (alongside with Hawthorne and Poe). "The Turn of the Screw" is a moving and frightening tale about childhood and its dark side. James makes us aware that childhood is not always that Paradise we have been told. Read in a lonely night will increase your feelings of terror and... "The Aspern Paper" or what would you do to get what you most desire? Editors certainly are people authors, those surrounding authors, should be prevented against. Join a ravishing editor, the lover of a late writer and her simple niece, and you will have another superb example of the narrative possibilities of any topic when written by a great author.

Ghosts in December, 18 May 2008
It's been over a hundred years since Henry James' novella was published. I'm sure readers at the time were spooked by its tale of ghosts threatening the innocence of two children, and the attempts of a quasi-hysterical governess to save them. It was that period of the Victorian era when séances and ghosts were popular, when spiritists promised to bridge the road between the living and the dead. People enjoyed sitting around a fire and sharing ghost stories, specially during Christmas time.

But times have changed and this novella is now more interesting as a controversial piece of lit crit rather than a frightening ghost story. Did the ghosts in the story really exist? Or was it all part of the governess' imagination? You are never given the answers. One interesting question which resonates with today's world is what kind of "evil" was inflicted on the children. It's suggested that a deceased governess and her lover did "depraved" things to the children, only to later return as ghosts in order to continue their evil influence. But what kind of evil exactly?

If you enjoy puzzles and hard-to-read English writing, this novella is for you; if you are after an easy page-turner, you are better off looking elsewhere.

Screw turner not Page turner, 07 Dec 2007
And this is the author who dared to belittle Thomas Hardy. Henry James, born of insipid wealth and Hardy, wrought of the brown Wessex earth, and so their writing shows.

Turn of the Screw is a novel that could only be written by James. Which is to say that if a room full of socialite closet homosexual virgins with infinite typewriters were allowed infinite time to come up with a spooky story, this would be the inevitable result.

James' pathological will to translate the world's broadest language into the prose equivalent of C++ code is on show at the height of its powers here. Marvel at 5 page diatribes that could otherwise be summed up as "She saw a man and he saw her". Gasp at 50 word sentences that translate as "Oh what a beautiful child he was; and oh what a beautiful child she was; and oh what a beautful..." Oh what's the point.

The point is that Henry James is every bit the author that deserves raucous deliberation amongst the Oxbridge set as they blaze through their short-lived literary phases, prior to a career in private equity. James is also every bit a writer that merits insecure puzzlement from everyone else (its not you its HIM).

Apparently this is a spine-chiller. Hilariously having assumed this category, it has the timeless excuse that people, you know, "in those days" would've found it chilling. Because, of course, people in those days were all Mr Darcy types who shielded wilting debutantes from the most villanous of stiff breezes.

Personally i prefer to think of turn of the century readers of Turn of the Screw frowing the same frown, yawning the same yawn, then rolling over for the same night's sleep as i did.



Atmospheric, 01 Nov 2007
I almost gave up on this tale but persevered because a trusted friend had told me that it would be worth it. She was correct. Wow! What a chilling ghost story. It has a very atmospheric setting, in a country home in England, during the 1840s. The tale begins with friends chatting round a fire. One of the group begins to tell a tale about a governess who was employed in the home to look after two young children. Their guardian, who is their Uncle, tells her he wants nothing to do with her or the children, and that she mustn't bother him. The governess begins to see two ghosts, whom she believes are the previous governess and her lover. She thinks these ghosts are meaning to harm the children. The children claim to not be able to see any ghosts and the rest of the household staff are equally bemused. The reader is left wondering whether the governess is suffering from delusions, or genuinely needs to save the children from the ghosts. The final pages had me gripped and the ending left me breathless.






One good turn., 04 Apr 2007
I adore this book! I have read it so many times I need a new copy. This is definitely not a pleasant read, it is disturbing. It is in the skillful writing of James that creates a gripping story that leaves more questions & mystery on each new read. This ia a classic gothic tale that all fans of the genre should read.

The big book of commas, 18 Oct 2006
What becomes apparent upon first opening the book is that Henry James loves commas. Each long winded sentence ,seems, to stretch for half a page, which, without wanting to the press the point,makes,a very slow,hard to read novel.
The opening was promising! I thought the author wrote in such a style as to create suspense in the reader until i found myself dying to hear the story (the book is in the format of a tale read by an arbitrary character to a group of friends). But when the story begun, i realised that this was in fact not a deliberate attempt to create suspense, but instead was just the way in which James writes!
I was required to read this for an english literature course, and cannot see how anyone would want to read this for leisure. It realy is an uphill struggle, and even being an avid literature fan myself, i had to sit with a dictionary and look up every second word.
The plot does not make up for the battle one must put themselves through to reach the end of the book. Perhaps at the time the book was a shocking "ghost story" of a tale. But it stirred no feeling in me, was far too descriptive of mundane things with distracted from the plot, and was ,to put it plainly, boring.
I had hoped that the end would redeem the book, but without giving anything away, i was extremely dissapointed.

All in all a very difficult to read book which provided me with no enjoyment whatsoever.

Terrifying ghost story, 27 Jun 2008
Unlike some of the other reviewers here I still think this is the creepiest book I've ever read, and all the more terrifying for the fact that James never articulates what's going on - he simply leaves your imagination to float free and conjure up all your worse nightmares. Yes, he's never an easy read (though this is far more accessible than Wings of the Dove, The Golden Bowl etc) but I think his very stately, mannered sentences and diction actually add to the horror of the story. Don't read this if you're expecting Stephen King or The Exorcist - James expects his readers to make the effort to read properly. Someone called this (possibly James himself?)'the most poisonous little tale I could imagine' and I think that's a perfect description - when I re-read it, it was on the tube with bright lights and lots of people around as I couldn't face reading it at home alone!

chilling, disturbing, eerie - definitely worth perservering, 31 Dec 1999
Outwardly the novella appears to be a straightforward ghost story, narrated by the governess the 'victim' of this story A governess is offered the position of taking under her care two small charges - brother and sister - whose parents have passed away. Their uncle whom is their legal guardian assigns them to the care and protection of a young governess twenty years of age.

Placed in supreme authority of the big ramnbling country house over the children and servants - the young governess becomes aware of malevolent presences within and around the house. She sees the ghosts of the previous valet and governess both of whom passed away a while back. Convinced the two ghosts are after the souls of her two young charges, she resorts to desperate measures and round the clock care to keep the children safe and solve the mystery of the relationship between the previous inhabitants and her dependants.

However a disturbing relationship develops between her and that of her sole charges - most noticably Miles, the young boy. It is this eerie theme of sexual and social unrest that makes the novel so disturbing. Much of the novel is told through the viewpoint of the governess. It is only by studying the dialogues between her and her charges that the truth, her behaviour, her ulterior motives, finally becomes apparent.

Henry James does a fine job of creating an eerie atmosphere, keeping the reader in suspense. His delicate allusions to the strange forces of evil keep the plot from becoming obvious. A second reading of the novel is essential in order to realise fully the truth that is constantly hinted at throughout the novel.

The Turn of the Screw succeeds due to its ambiguity and projection of mental imbalance, all the more powerful as events are told from the governess' viewpoint. The reader has to sift and judge the account on an objective basis in order to be able to perceive the truth.

Different editions, 23 May 2008
Readers should note that the green Penguin Pocket Classics edition (and the old budget Popular Classics one to which this is the successor) use the original 1881 edition of the novel. James subsequently revised his work for the 1908 New York edition, and this latter one is used by most current paperback versions including Penguin's full-price Classics edition, along with those of Vintage and Wordsworth and others. Among many changes the final paragraph of the novel is substantially longer and less abrupt in the 1908 version.

Be careful what you ask for..., 28 Mar 2006
Re-reading this novel again so closely after reading Trollope's Can You Forgive Her? I can't help being struck by the similarity between Isobel Archer and Alice Vavasour. Both characters have financial freedom but crave social and spiritual freedom. Alice has the common sense to realise just in time, that her dependable John Grey, despite giving the appearance of a conventional man keen on a quiet life within the confines of what society expects, is far more likely to allow the freedom Alice craves, after their marriage.

Isabel Archer however, mistakes a bohemian lifestyle on offer with Osmond for the freedom she seeks. Her stubborness and to a certain extent, her inverted snobbery, prevent her from taking Lord Warburton seriously, a man ready and willing to allow her to live as she craves. Osmond plays Isabel like a harp, appearing to offer what she desires and then closing the door on life forever using the very social conventions and expectations that Isabel has feared she would find with Lord Warburton. It is superb writing. Compare this piece of art with it's cleverly calibrated plot and clearly drawn characters with rubbish like the Shadow of the Wind and you despair that people don't take the time to really read something worthwhile.

Henry James must have read Trollope's novel. He's taken the same basic story and converted it very skillfully for his own needs.
It's probably the best of Henry James' novels, so if you have limited time, read this one. The book's structure is nearly perfect, the writing is sublime in the same closely worked way that Jane Austen's prose enthralls. It's well worth the effort.

"The real offense was her having a mind of her own at all.", 13 Feb 2005
When Isabel Archer, a bright and independent young American, makes her first trip to Europe in the company of her aunt, Mrs. Touchett, who lives outside of London in a 400-year-old estate, she discovers a totally different world, one which does not encourage her independent thinking or behavior and which is governed by rigid social codes. This contrast between American and European values, vividly dramatized here, is a consistent theme in James's novels, one based on his own experiences living in the US and England. In prose that is filled with rich observations about places, customs, and attitudes, James portrays Isabel's European coming-of-age, as she discovers that she must curb her intellect and independence if she is to fit into the social scheme in which she now finds herself.

Isabel Archer, one of James's most fully drawn characters, has postponed a marriage in America for a year of travel abroad, only to discover upon her precipitate and ill-considered marriage to an American living in Florence, that it is her need to be independent that makes her marriage a disaster. Gilbert Osmond, an American art collector living in Florence, marries Isabel for the fortune she has inherited from her uncle, treating her like an object d'art which he expects to remain "on the shelf." Madame Serena Merle, his long-time lover, is, like Osmond, an American whose venality and lack of scruples have been encouraged, if not developed, by the European milieu in which they live.

James packs more information into one paragraph than many writers do in an entire chapter. Distanced and formal, he presents psychologically realistic characters whose behavior is a direct outgrowth of their upbringing, with their conflicts resulting from the differences between their expectations and the reality of their changed settings. The subordinate characters, Ralph Touchett, Pansy Osmond, her suitor Edward Rosier, American journalist Henrietta Stackpole, Isabel's former suitor Caspar Stackpole, and Lord Warburton, whose love of Isabel leads him to court Pansy, are as fascinating psychologically and as much a product of their own upbringing as is Isabel.

As the setting moves from America to England, Paris, Florence, and Rome, James develops his themes, and as Isabel's life becomes more complex, her increasingly difficult and emotionally affecting choices about her life make her increasingly fascinating to the reader. James's trenchant observations about the relationship between individuals and society and about the effects of one's setting on one's behavior are enhanced by the elegance and density of his prose, making this a novel one must read slowly--and savor. Mary Whipple

Did she jump or was she pushed, 01 Nov 2001
James is keen to bring to the readers attention that he wishes for Isabel to have unlimited freedom to be what she wants to be. The central theme of the novel is Isabels indecision over what she should do with her life she admitts to Osmond that she changes her mind every day as to what to she should do with her life. It as if she is a blue print needing to be stamped by another ,unlike Henrietta Stackpole, she is unable to take responsibility for her own actions.

The reason that it hard for the reader to have sympathy with Isabels predictment in her miserable marriage to Osmond. Is that in some respects she finds it romantic to suffer in her opinion the quest for greater knowledge can only be gained by suffering. She longs for passion and fulfillment but if she accepted Casper Goodwoods proposal it would be too easy, she would no longer have control and she would have to emotionally respond in a relationship.

Osmond is sterile, controlling and one dimensional but Isabel gives very little indication that she is any different. The sterile world of Osmonds is a sanctionary away from the realities of love and life. Isabel belives that she has a greater mind than her peers. The power games that she engages with Osborne not only only gives him superiority but provides Isabel with a mission.

If Isabel had a true intellect she would stand up to Osborne as she knows what he is about but as with many battered women the lure of the beast is an all consuming passion. She doesn't love Osborne but she is passionate about understanding him. She has money and good frends who are not conventional.The excuse that she had no option but to stay with Osborne because of the restrictions on women of the time do not apply here. The truth is that she wants to stay she enjoys the restrcitions of their narrow life. She admitts to Goodwood' the world is very small' which in essence is how Osborne views life perhpas they have meet their match in each other.
There could be hope for Isabel in the form of Casper Goodwood but it is in his hands. Isabel likes to be controlled. Henrietta is wise but kind, ' just you wait' she echos at Goodwoods disappointment at finding Isabel gone, she knows the romance could suceed but it depends on whether Goodwood is prepared to wait. For freedom in life is the last thing that Isabel truely wants. James challenged her restrictive nature by giving her the world.

Terrifying tale, 27 Jun 2008
Unlike some of the other reviewers here I still think this is the creepiest book I've ever read, and all the more terrifying for the fact that James never articulates what's going on - he simply leaves your imagination to float free and conjure up all your worse nightmares. Yes, he's never an easy read (though this is far more accessible than Wings of the Dove, The Golden Bowl etc) but I think his very stately, mannered sentences and diction actually add to the horror of the story. Don't read this if you're expecting Stephen King or The Exorcist - James expects his readers to make the effort to read properly. Someone called this (possibly James himself?)'the most poisonous little tale I could imagine' and I think that's a perfect description - when I re-read it, it was on the tube with bright lights and lots of people around as I couldn't face reading it at home alone!

A good starting point for Henry James, 06 Feb 2008
I first became aware of Henry James when Colm Toibin released The Master. After The Master, I would have been happy never to hear of James again - it was a dull, dull book about an apparently dull, dull man. Imagine my ambivalence, then, when I was given a copy of The Aspern Papers and The Turning of the Screw...

But from a sense of duty, I did open the book. And I'm glad I did. Yes, Henry James does write some long and pompous sentences. In The Aspern Papers, these are forgivable since the narrator has to be a bit of a pompous man himself. I thought it worked less well in Screw, simply because it made the female private tutor seem, somehow, mannish. But where both tales excelled was in creating suspense and mystery. In Aspern, the suspense centres around a game of cat and mouse to persuade an aged former lover of the poet Jeffrey Aspern to part with her private writings and papers from Aspern; and in Screw it seems to concern the possession of two children by ghosts. In both, though, the eventual outcome is genuinely up for grabs right to the end with twists and turns aplenty.

The leitmotif is of repressed emotion. But unlike the portrayal in The Master, I got the feeling that James understood the whole gamut of human emotion very well. It must have taken a great sense of empathy, both with the characters to understand the emotions being surpressed, and also with the reader to understand how to create a welling feeling of hope, expectation and fear. Henry James seemed very much a man of the world - as he probably had to be, selling his work by installments in magazines.

I couldn't help noticing a similarity in style with Sheridan LeFanu, particularly in the ghostly theme of Screw. LeFanu also wrote a mixture of short stories, tales and novels, many of which had a deepening sense of mystery and forboding. I suspect LeFanu's writing style is often more acessible (i.e. shorter sentences) but there is also a tendency towards Victorian pomposity. The two writers also seemed to share a real need to set the narrator into a context - it was not enough to pitch in with the story, the narrator had to have a reason for telling it. This may seem rather outdated (although Neil Bartlett took it to new heights with Skin Lane this year), but it does have quite a charm to it.

Of the two tales, I much preferred The Aspern Papers, perhaps because it didn't rely on ghosts (although the old lady did claim to be 150) and thus created a surreal but conceivable world. It also seemed to twist more as the narrator found himself variously on the front foot and back foot, but always erring on the side of caution for fear of losing the prize. Screw is, perhaps, a bit more linear. But as an introduction to Henry James - and even one jaded by Toibin's unfortunate tribute - the two tales make an excellent starting point.

Mastery, 23 Mar 2001
Henry James shows himself as the great master of American short fiction (alongside with Hawthorne and Poe). "The Turn of the Screw" is a moving and frightening tale about childhood and its dark side. James makes us aware that childhood is not always that Paradise we have been told. Read in a lonely night will increase your feelings of terror and... "The Aspern Paper" or what would you do to get what you most desire? Editors certainly are people authors, those surrounding authors, should be prevented against. Join a ravishing editor, the lover of a late writer and her simple niece, and you will have another superb example of the narrative possibilities of any topic when written by a great author.

awful stuff., 20 Aug 2008
Oh I hated this book with a passion. Dull lengthy narrative, most un endearing protagonist and infuriating conclusion. Cannot understand it's appeal at all. Definately not reccomended.

Ghosts in December, 18 May 2008
It's been over a hundred years since Henry James' novella was published. I'm sure readers at the time were spooked by its tale of ghosts threatening the innocence of two children, and the attempts of a quasi-hysterical governess to save them. It was that period of the Victorian era when séances and ghosts were popular, when spiritists promised to bridge the road between the living and the dead. People enjoyed sitting around a fire and sharing ghost stories, specially during Christmas time.

But times have changed and this novella is now more interesting as a controversial piece of lit crit rather than a frightening ghost story. Did the ghosts in the story really exist? Or was it all part of the governess' imagination? You are never given the answers. One interesting question which resonates with today's world is what kind of "evil" was inflicted on the children. It's suggested that a deceased governess and her lover did "depraved" things to the children, only to later return as ghosts in order to continue their evil influence. But what kind of evil exactly?

If you enjoy puzzles and hard-to-read English writing, this novella is for you; if you are after an easy page-turner, you are better off looking elsewhere.

Screw turner not Page turner, 07 Dec 2007
And this is the author who dared to belittle Thomas Hardy. Henry James, born of insipid wealth and Hardy, wrought of the brown Wessex earth, and so their writing shows.

Turn of the Screw is a novel that could only be written by James. Which is to say that if a room full of socialite closet homosexual virgins with infinite typewriters were allowed infinite time to come up with a spooky story, this would be the inevitable result.

James' pathological will to translate the world's broadest language into the prose equivalent of C++ code is on show at the height of its powers here. Marvel at 5 page diatribes that could otherwise be summed up as "She saw a man and he saw her". Gasp at 50 word sentences that translate as "Oh what a beautiful child he was; and oh what a beautiful child she was; and oh what a beautful..." Oh what's the point.

The point is that Henry James is every bit the author that deserves raucous deliberation amongst the Oxbridge set as they blaze through their short-lived literary phases, prior to a career in private equity. James is also every bit a writer that merits insecure puzzlement from everyone else (its not you its HIM).

Apparently this is a spine-chiller. Hilariously having assumed this category, it has the timeless excuse that people, you know, "in those days" would've found it chilling. Because, of course, people in those days were all Mr Darcy types who shielded wilting debutantes from the most villanous of stiff breezes.

Personally i prefer to think of turn of the century readers of Turn of the Screw frowing the same frown, yawning the same yawn, then rolling over for the same night's sleep as i did.



Atmospheric, 01 Nov 2007
I almost gave up on this tale but persevered because a trusted friend had told me that it would be worth it. She was correct. Wow! What a chilling ghost story. It has a very atmospheric setting, in a country home in England, during the 1840s. The tale begins with friends chatting round a fire. One of the group begins to tell a tale about a governess who was employed in the home to look after two young children. Their guardian, who is their Uncle, tells her he wants nothing to do with her or the children, and that she mustn't bother him. The governess begins to see two ghosts, whom she believes are the previous governess and her lover. She thinks these ghosts are meaning to harm the children. The children claim to not be able to see any ghosts and the rest of the household staff are equally bemused. The reader is left wondering whether the governess is suffering from delusions, or genuinely needs to save the children from the ghosts. The final pages had me gripped and the ending left me breathless.






One good turn., 04 Apr 2007
I adore this book! I have read it so many times I need a new copy. This is definitely not a pleasant read, it is disturbing. It is in the skillful writing of James that creates a gripping story that leaves more questions & mystery on each new read. This ia a classic gothic tale that all fans of the genre should read.

The big book of commas, 18 Oct 2006
What becomes apparent upon first opening the book is that Henry James loves commas. Each long winded sentence ,seems, to stretch for half a page, which, without wanting to the press the point,makes,a very slow,hard to read novel.
The opening was promising! I thought the author wrote in such a style as to create suspense in the reader until i found myself dying to hear the story (the book is in the format of a tale read by an arbitrary character to a group of friends). But when the story begun, i realised that this was in fact not a deliberate attempt to create suspense, but instead was just the way in which James writes!
I was required to read this for an english literature course, and cannot see how anyone would want to read this for leisure. It realy is an uphill struggle, and even being an avid literature fan myself, i had to sit with a dictionary and look up every second word.
The plot does not make up for the battle one must put themselves through to reach the end of the book. Perhaps at the time the book was a shocking "ghost story" of a tale. But it stirred no feeling in me, was far too descriptive of mundane things with distracted from the plot, and was ,to put it plainly, boring.
I had hoped that the end would redeem the book, but without giving anything away, i was extremely dissapointed.

All in all a very difficult to read book which provided me with no enjoyment whatsoever.

Terrifying ghost story, 27 Jun 2008
Unlike some of the other reviewers here I still think this is the creepiest book I've ever read, and all the more terrifying for the fact that James never articulates what's going on - he simply leaves your imagination to float free and conjure up all your worse nightmares. Yes, he's never an easy read (though this is far more accessible than Wings of the Dove, The Golden Bowl etc) but I think his very stately, mannered sentences and diction actually add to the horror of the story. Don't read this if you're expecting Stephen King or The Exorcist - James expects his readers to make the effort to read properly. Someone called this (possibly James himself?)'the most poisonous little tale I could imagine' and I think that's a perfect description - when I re-read it, it was on the tube with bright lights and lots of people around as I couldn't face reading it at home alone!

chilling, disturbing, eerie - definitely worth perservering, 31 Dec 1999
Outwardly the novella appears to be a straightforward ghost story, narrated by the governess the 'victim' of this story A governess is offered the position of taking under her care two small charges - brother and sister - whose parents have passed away. Their uncle whom is their legal guardian assigns them to the care and protection of a young governess twenty years of age.

Placed in supreme authority of the big ramnbling country house over the children and servants - the young governess becomes aware of malevolent presences within and around the house. She sees the ghosts of the previous valet and governess both of whom passed away a while back. Convinced the two ghosts are after the souls of her two young charges, she resorts to desperate measures and round the clock care to keep the children safe and solve the mystery of the relationship between the previous inhabitants and her dependants.

However a disturbing relationship develops between her and that of her sole charges - most noticably Miles, the young boy. It is this eerie theme of sexual and social unrest that makes the novel so disturbing. Much of the novel is told through the viewpoint of the governess. It is only by studying the dialogues between her and her charges that the truth, her behaviour, her ulterior motives, finally becomes apparent.

Henry James does a fine job of creating an eerie atmosphere, keeping the reader in suspense. His delicate allusions to the strange forces of evil keep the plot from becoming obvious. A second reading of the novel is essential in order to realise fully the truth that is constantly hinted at throughout the novel.

The Turn of the Screw succeeds due to its ambiguity and projection of mental imbalance, all the more powerful as events are told from the governess' viewpoint. The reader has to sift and judge the account on an objective basis in order to be able to perceive the truth.

Different editions, 23 May 2008
Readers should note that the green Penguin Pocket Classics edition (and the old budget Popular Classics one to which this is the successor) use the original 1881 edition of the novel. James subsequently revised his work for the 1908 New York edition, and this latter one is used by most current paperback versions including Penguin's full-price Classics edition, along with those of Vintage and Wordsworth and others. Among many changes the final paragraph of the novel is substantially longer and less abrupt in the 1908 version.

Be careful what you ask for..., 28 Mar 2006
Re-reading this novel again so closely after reading Trollope's Can You Forgive Her? I can't help being struck by the similarity between Isobel Archer and Alice Vavasour. Both characters have financial freedom but crave social and spiritual freedom. Alice has the common sense to realise just in time, that her dependable John Grey, despite giving the appearance of a conventional man keen on a quiet life within the confines of what society expects, is far more likely to allow the freedom Alice craves, after their marriage.

Isabel Archer however, mistakes a bohemian lifestyle on offer with Osmond for the freedom she seeks. Her stubborness and to a certain extent, her inverted snobbery, prevent her from taking Lord Warburton seriously, a man ready and willing to allow her to live as she craves. Osmond plays Isabel like a harp, appearing to offer what she desires and then closing the door on life forever using the very social conventions and expectations that Isabel has feared she would find with Lord Warburton. It is superb writing. Compare this piece of art with it's cleverly calibrated plot and clearly drawn characters with rubbish like the Shadow of the Wind and you despair that people don't take the time to really read something worthwhile.

Henry James must have read Trollope's novel. He's taken the same basic story and converted it very skillfully for his own needs.
It's probably the best of Henry James' novels, so if you have limited time, read this one. The book's structure is nearly perfect, the writing is sublime in the same closely worked way that Jane Austen's prose enthralls. It's well worth the effort.

"The real offense was her having a mind of her own at all.", 13 Feb 2005
When Isabel Archer, a bright and independent young American, makes her first trip to Europe in the company of her aunt, Mrs. Touchett, who lives outside of London in a 400-year-old estate, she discovers a totally different world, one which does not encourage her independent thinking or behavior and which is governed by rigid social codes. This contrast between American and European values, vividly dramatized here, is a consistent theme in James's novels, one based on his own experiences living in the US and England. In prose that is filled with rich observations about places, customs, and attitudes, James portrays Isabel's European coming-of-age, as she discovers that she must curb her intellect and independence if she is to fit into the social scheme in which she now finds herself.

Isabel Archer, one of James's most fully drawn characters, has postponed a marriage in America for a year of travel abroad, only to discover upon her precipitate and ill-considered marriage to an American living in Florence, that it is her need to be independent that makes her marriage a disaster. Gilbert Osmond, an American art collector living in Florence, marries Isabel for the fortune she has inherited from her uncle, treating her like an object d'art which he expects to remain "on the shelf." Madame Serena Merle, his long-time lover, is, like Osmond, an American whose venality and lack of scruples have been encouraged, if not developed, by the European milieu in which they live.

James packs more information into one paragraph than many writers do in an entire chapter. Distanced and formal, he presents psychologically realistic characters whose behavior is a direct outgrowth of their upbringing, with their conflicts resulting from the differences between their expectations and the reality of their changed settings. The subordinate characters, Ralph Touchett, Pansy Osmond, her suitor Edward Rosier, American journalist Henrietta Stackpole, Isabel's former suitor Caspar Stackpole, and Lord Warburton, whose love of Isabel leads him to court Pansy, are as fascinating psychologically and as much a product of their own upbringing as is Isabel.

As the setting moves from America to England, Paris, Florence, and Rome, James develops his themes, and as Isabel's life becomes more complex, her increasingly difficult and emotionally affecting choices about her life make her increasingly fascinating to the reader. James's trenchant observations about the relationship between individuals and society and about the effects of one's setting on one's behavior are enhanced by the elegance and density of his prose, making this a novel one must read slowly--and savor. Mary Whipple

Did she jump or was she pushed, 01 Nov 2001
James is keen to bring to the readers attention that he wishes for Isabel to have unlimited freedom to be what she wants to be. The central theme of the novel is Isabels indecision over what she should do with her life she admitts to Osmond that she changes her mind every day as to what to she should do with her life. It as if she is a blue print needing to be stamped by another ,unlike Henrietta Stackpole, she is unable to take responsibility for her own actions.

The reason that it hard for the reader to have sympathy with Isabels predictment in her miserable marriage to Osmond. Is that in some respects she finds it romantic to suffer in her opinion the quest for greater knowledge can only be gained by suffering. She longs for passion and fulfillment but if she accepted Casper Goodwoods proposal it would be too easy, she would no longer have control and she would have to emotionally respond in a relationship.

Osmond is sterile, controlling and one dimensional but Isabel gives very little indication that she is any different. The sterile world of Osmonds is a sanctionary away from the realities of love and life. Isabel belives that she has a greater mind than her peers. The power games that she engages with Osborne not only only gives him superiority but provides Isabel with a mission.

If Isabel had a true intellect she would stand up to Osborne as she knows what he is about but as with many battered women the lure of the beast is an all consuming passion. She doesn't love Osborne but she is passionate about understanding him. She has money and good frends who are not conventional.The excuse that she had no option but to stay with Osborne because of the restrictions on women of the time do not apply here. The truth is that she wants to stay she enjoys the restrcitions of their narrow life. She admitts to Goodwood' the world is very small' which in essence is how Osborne views life perhpas they have meet their match in each other.
There could be hope for Isabel in the form of Casper Goodwood but it is in his hands. Isabel likes to be controlled. Henrietta is wise but kind, ' just you wait' she echos at Goodwoods disappointment at finding Isabel gone, she knows the romance could suceed but it depends on whether Goodwood is prepared to wait. For freedom in life is the last thing that Isabel truely wants. James challenged her restrictive nature by giving her the world.

Terrifying tale, 27 Jun 2008
Unlike some of the other reviewers here I still think this is the creepiest book I've ever read, and all the more terrifying for the fact that James never articulates what's going on - he simply leaves your imagination to float free and conjure up all your worse nightmares. Yes, he's never an easy read (though this is far more accessible than Wings of the Dove, The Golden Bowl etc) but I think his very stately, mannered sentences and diction actually add to the horror of the story. Don't read this if you're expecting Stephen King or The Exorcist - James expects his readers to make the effort to read properly. Someone called this (possibly James himself?)'the most poisonous little tale I could imagine' and I think that's a perfect description - when I re-read it, it was on the tube with bright lights and lots of people around as I couldn't face reading it at home alone!

A good starting point for Henry James, 06 Feb 2008
I first became aware of Henry James when Colm Toibin released The Master. After The Master, I would have been happy never to hear of James again - it was a dull, dull book about an apparently dull, dull man. Imagine my ambivalence, then, when I was given a copy of The Aspern Papers and The Turning of the Screw...

But from a sense of duty, I did open the book. And I'm glad I did. Yes, Henry James does write some long and pompous sentences. In The Aspern Papers, these are forgivable since the narrator has to be a bit of a pompous man himself. I thought it worked less well in Screw, simply because it made the female private tutor seem, somehow, mannish. But where both tales excelled was in creating suspense and mystery. In Aspern, the suspense centres around a game of cat and mouse to persuade an aged former lover of the poet Jeffrey Aspern to part with her private writings and papers from Aspern; and in Screw it seems to concern the possession of two children by ghosts. In both, though, the eventual outcome is genuinely up for grabs right to the end with twists and turns aplenty.

The leitmotif is of repressed emotion. But unlike the portrayal in The Master, I got the feeling that James understood the whole gamut of human emotion very well. It must have taken a great sense of empathy, both with the characters to understand the emotions being surpressed, and also with the reader to understand how to create a welling feeling of hope, expectation and fear. Henry James seemed very much a man of the world - as he probably had to be, selling his work by installments in magazines.

I couldn't help noticing a similarity in style with Sheridan LeFanu, particularly in the ghostly theme of Screw. LeFanu also wrote a mixture of short stories, tales and novels, many of which had a deepening sense of mystery and forboding. I suspect LeFanu's writing style is often more acessible (i.e. shorter sentences) but there is also a tendency towards Victorian pomposity. The two writers also seemed to share a real need to set the narrator into a context - it was not enough to pitch in with the story, the narrator had to have a reason for telling it. This may seem rather outdated (although Neil Bartlett took it to new heights with Skin Lane this year), but it does have quite a charm to it.

Of the two tales, I much preferred The Aspern Papers, perhaps because it didn't rely on ghosts (although the old lady did claim to be 150) and thus created a surreal but conceivable world. It also seemed to twist more as the narrator found himself variously on the front foot and back foot, but always erring on the side of caution for fear of losing the prize. Screw is, perhaps, a bit more linear. But as an introduction to Henry James - and even one jaded by Toibin's unfortunate tribute - the two tales make an excellent starting point.

Mastery, 23 Mar 2001
Henry James shows himself as the great master of American short fiction (alongside with Hawthorne and Poe). "The Turn of the Screw" is a moving and frightening tale about childhood and its dark side. James makes us aware that childhood is not always that Paradise we have been told. Read in a lonely night will increase your feelings of terror and... "The Aspern Paper" or what would you do to get what you most desire? Editors certainly are people authors, those surrounding authors, should be prevented against. Join a ravishing editor, the lover of a late writer and her simple niece, and you will have another superb example of the narrative possibilities of any topic when written by a great author.

awful stuff., 20 Aug 2008
Oh I hated this book with a passion. Dull lengthy narrative, most un endearing protagonist and infuriating conclusion. Cannot understand it's appeal at all. Definately not reccomended.

Not his best, 12 Aug 2008
As a Henry James lover, having read everything he's written, & waded through The Golden Bowl twice, I feel I've earnt the right to say it's not his best book.

The epicurean connoisseur at life's feast indulges himself in his last book with a fault he confessed himself prone: "to over-treat".

The writing is marred by endless empty sub-clauses, needless repetition, rhetorical flourishes, & very affected, stagey dialogue. The metaphors are over-blown, the description of characters hyperbolic, the drama suffocated by its own 'written-ness'. His late style marks a form of literary inflation: here he uses 50 words where in earlier work he would have used 5 to more powerful effect.

The 'Master' has, in short, run to fat.





Death by sub clause, 28 Apr 2008
If anyone had told me before I read this book that such a thing as death by sub clause existed I would have laughed in their face. I am not denying this book it's place in Literature, I am saying it is not an enjoyable read. I love beautiful prose as much as the next person, and i advise you to find it in D H Lawrence and Virginia Woolf. This novel tortures, wrapping an average plot in alot of flowery window dressing.

More than usually ponderously luke-warm, 19 Dec 2005
Who would have guessed that, despite his intrinsic, nay, atavistic desire (at least, that is how he characterized it to himself), to use when writing, as a matter of policy, the most long-winded and almost incomprehensibly tortured syntax, crawling through an infinity of sub-clauses, that he would one day, perhaps not during his lifetime but certainly in the near future, become acknowledged, by his own enemies no less, as one of the greatest and most tedious writers of the century, or indeed, of any other?

Brilliant and challenging..., 24 Oct 1999
Definitely the most demanding read I've had in a long time, Henry James' THE GOLDEN BOWL is not to be missed. In James' final novel, he has created a true masterpiece. Not only must the reader concentrate, but he/she must also actually participate and think in order to take anything away from the book. It's basic plot is quite straightforward: Adam Verver and his daughter, Maggie, are affluent art collectors living in Europe. Maggie marries Amerigo, an Italian prince in reduced circumstances, and Adam marries Maggie's longtime friend Charlotte. What father and daughter don't know is that Charlotte and Amerigo were formerly lovers, and that they have rekindled their affair.

Written in a beautifully ambiguous style, BOWL is full of ingenious symbolism, and must be experienced to be fully appreciated. James has decided to tell a story with a very unique voice, and it is likely that most readers will be scared off by the decidedly difficult prose. However, it is an absolute must for any serious reader who wants to challenge him/herself with what is arguably Henry James' best novel. It may take months to trudge through (as it did for me), but it is worth it!

Ghosts in December, 18 May 2008
It's been over a hundred years since Henry James' novella was published. I'm sure readers at the time were spooked