Introduction

The Turn of the Screw is an American novella written by Henry James and was originally published in the late 1890's. It is a ghost story, but unlike the ghost stories common in the period, James creates his ghosts out of an eerie realism somewhere between fiction and reality, rather than the slasher/murderer ghosts and sheeted creepy butlers.

It is the story of a young governess and her place in a house in Essex. She is charged with caring for a young boy and his sister. While caring for the children she begins to see the apparitions of the house's previous occupants, a man and woman. As the story evolves she begins to believe with more and more certainty that the children are aware of the ghosts as well.

One of the questions the story leaves behind is whether the governess is a victim to supernatural intervention, or whether she is slowly going insane.