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Turn of the Screw (Unabridged Start Publishing LLC) by [Henry James]

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Henry James

Turn of the Screw (Unabridged Start Publishing LLC) Kindle Edition

by Henry James (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

1,812 ratings

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To read a story by Henry James is to enter a world-- a rich, perfectly crafted domain of vivid language and splendid, complex characters. In this classic novella, a young governess who goes to an isolated English estate to take charge of two precocious children gradually realizes that her young charges are under the evil influence of the ghosts of the family's ex-steward and former governess.

Length: 96 pages	Word Wise: Enabled	Enhanced Typesetting: Enabled
Page Flip: Enabled	Language: English

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Much imitated ... but no one comes near the finesse of the master (The Times)

Timelessly unsettling (Guardian) --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

From the Publisher

Henry James was born in New York in 1843 and was educated in Europe and America. He left Harvard Law School in 1863, after a year’s attendance, to concentrate on writing, and from 1869 he began to make prolonged visits to Europe, eventually settling in England in 1876. His literary output was prodigious and of the highest quality: more than ten outstanding novels, including The Portrait of a Lady and The American; countless novellas and short stories; as well as innumerable essays, letters, and other pieces of critical prose. Known by contemporary fellow novelists as ‘The Master’, James died in London in 1916. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

From the Author

Henry James was born in New York in 1843 and was educated in Europe and America. He left Harvard Law School in 1863, after a year’s attendance, to concentrate on writing, and from 1869 he began to make prolonged visits to Europe, eventually settling in England in 1876. His literary output was prodigious and of the highest quality: more than ten outstanding novels, including The Portrait of a Lady and The American; countless novellas and short stories; as well as innumerable essays, letters, and other pieces of critical prose. Known by contemporary fellow novelists as ‘The Master’, James died in London in 1916. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

From the Inside Flap

--This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

From the Back Cover

Widely recognized as one of literature's most gripping ghost stories, this classic tale of moral degradation concerns the sinister transformation of two innocent children into flagrant liars and hypocrites. The story begins when a governess arrives at an English country estate to look after Miles, aged ten, and Flora, eight. At first, everything appears normal but then events gradually begin to weave a spell of psychological terror.
Without resorting to clattering chains, demonic noises, and other melodramatic techniques, this elegantly told tale succeeds in creating an atmosphere of tingling suspense and unspoken horror matched by few other books in the genre. Known for his probing psychological novels dealing with the upper classes, James in this story tried his hand at the occult--and created a masterpiece of the supernatural that has frightened and delighted readers for nearly a century.

--This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

About the Author

Henry James was born in 1843 in Washington Place, New York, of Scottish and Irish ancestry. In addition to many short stories, plays, books of criticism, autobiography and travel, he wrote some twenty novels, the first published being Roderick Hudson (1875). They include The Europeans, Washington Square, The Portrait of a Lady, The Bostonians, The Princess Casamassima, The Tragic Muse, The Spoils of Poynton, The Awkward Age, The Wings of the Dove, The Ambassadors and The Golden Bowl.

David Bromwich is Sterling Professor of English at Yale University. He has written widely on Hazlitt, Wordsworth, Edmund Burke and modern poetry.

--This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

Book Description

Two terrifying ghost stories from master storyteller Henry James --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

Review

Two terrifying ghost stories from master storyteller Henry James featuring an afterword by bestselling author Kate Mosse. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

ASIN : B00AOIKE7M
Publisher : Start Publishing LLC (12 December 2012)
Language : English
File size : 361 KB
Text-to-Speech : Enabled
Screen Reader : Supported
Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
X-Ray : Not Enabled
Word Wise : Enabled
Print length : 96 pages
Page numbers source ISBN : 1420922440

Customer Reviews:
1,812 ratings

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4 star		17%
3 star		11%
2 star		5%
1 star		7%

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mepeewee

This edition needs layout editing badly.

Reviewed in Australia on 29 December 2016

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One of the classic greats - no doubt about that.
However this 'edition' has been poorly scanned - words conjoined, sentences often broken at end-of-line, page headings and numbers interrupt reading. All makes it a bit hard to read smoothly, though at the price one can't really complain.
I'm itching to edit it to correct all (or most) of these relatively minor errors!!

One person found this helpful

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Worth A Try.

Reviewed in Australia on 24 December 2016

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I thought it might be worthwhile to read this somewhat antiquated ghost story by Henry James. I finished it wondering about the sanity of the governess in the story. As a ghost story it is rather unconvincing. Due to poor editing / formatting the book is extremely difficult to read.

One person found this helpful

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Katherine

A total rip-off.

Reviewed in Australia on 11 November 2016

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I don't know what edition it purports to be but it is full of printing and placement errors, rendering it unreadable. Shame on you, Amazon and Kindle.

One person found this helpful

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Loretta

Not for everyone

Reviewed in Australia on 31 October 2018

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Found this book not to my liking. Others may enjo it

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Amazon Customer

Four Stars

Reviewed in Australia on 1 January 2016

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Left me wanting to know more...ideal thriller.

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M. Dowden

Deservedly A Classic

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 23 November 2015

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If you mention Henry James people always seem to shy away, thinking that his books are hard to read or to understand. Sometimes very long winded perhaps, but not in this case. Even if you never read anything else by Henry James ever, there is still plenty of reason to read this. I don't know myself how many times I have read this novella over the years, as it is something that you find yourself coming back to time and time again.

Who doesn't like a great ghost story? Well this is one of those. A governess has to take charge of two children but she starts seeing apparitions, which eventually result in tragedy. At the same time she goes about learning who these apparitions are. Sounds interesting? It is, and a great piece of escapism. You can read this tale just like that, but you also begin to notice that things may not be as they seem, there are definitely things going on just under the surface.

This is in many ways quite ambiguous as is there really a haunting, or is this just the imagination of a woman who may be hysterical or comes up with some fantasy to hide other things? Over the years many have taken on the challenge to come up with a definitive answer, and no one has, simply because there isn’t one. James left us with a great tale and something that will make you think. Many have tried since then to write something as good, as well as this being filmed many times. The simple truth though is that no one has come close, let alone excelled the Master himself. This really is one of the greatest supernatural tales ever written.

39 people found this helpful

Emily Weatherburn

Intensely Interesting

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 9 November 2018

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Since finishing The Turn of the Screw, I've had to edit my rating; at first, I settled on 3/5, deciding that the book was OKAY, if a little overly ambiguous. Yet then I reflected on my reading experience, and decided that this rating would be a little unfair. I DID really enjoy reading this book, and I cannot deny that its ambiguity is what makes it so powerful.

The story follows an unnamed narrator who is hired as the governess in a place called Bly. There, she will care for the two children placed under her employer's care, Flora and Miles. As soon as she meets these children, she is struck by their angelic beauty, and becomes desperate to protect them. This is made more complex when the narrator begins to see things that... shouldn't really be there. Ghost-like figures begin following her around Bly, and the narrator is certain that they want to take the children from her.

It's a gothic novella, and, as a result, contains many aspects of the traditional horror story. Bly is the haunted house that derives from Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto, and the supposed innocence of the children reflects that of the women in Bram Stoker's Dracula. Yet there is a lot more to this story than first meets the eye. As the story goes on, the narrator begins to suspect that the children are purposefully going after the ghosts, almost as if they want to join them in the hellish afterlife that Henry James describes.

The brilliance of this story lies in the fact that it becomes impossible to determine whether the narrator is slowly losing their mind, or whether there really are ghosts flitting through Bly. In a highly-confusing, yet, with reflection, extremely powerful ending, this ambiguity is cemented. This is one of those stories where you can never really tell what the truth was, and there's a certain appeal as to thinking about it, and trying to discern the truth from a book that only ever seems to offer questions.

It's quite an intense read, but was the perfect choice for Halloween; there's a certain appeal to reading about ghosts from the past as the rain hits the windows outside and children dress up as ghouls and monsters. It's also a classic, so, whilst I found the writing truly beautiful, it may not be for everyone, particularly as some of the sentence structures were enormously confusing. Personally, I'm really glad that I chose to read The Turn of the Screw. It really is a book that will make you think, and maybe even shiver.

7 people found this helpful

Dr Lesley J Twigg

this version is a translation

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 18 November 2018

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Language was almost unintelligible. I thought at first that it was due to the style . I realized however, as I plowed through it, that the only explanation for the awful grammar etc was that the book had been translated back to English from some other language. My suspicions were,I think, confirmed when the" bank" of a lake was described as "financial institution" .Looks almost like a computer translation rather than by anyone with ant understanding. I n the end I purchased another version from Amazon classics. This was very good.

7 people found this helpful

Denise Howard

A Classic Ghost Story

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 24 August 2019

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This is a book on my to-do-list for reading in the classics. I did have to sometimes re-read passages because of the dated style of writing, but this is part of the book and gives it the charm. I also remembered I have recently watched the film 'The Innocents' (1961) with Deborah Kerr which was an adaption of the book, which actually enabled me to understand the book more, so I definitely recommend this film if you enjoyed this book.

2 people found this helpful

M. J. Kane

A creepy Victorian gothic tale

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 8 February 2020

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A creepy gothic tale of two children possessed by evil.

The story is in the form of a journal written by the children’s governess and James builds the suspense gradually until the unexpected climax.

Sadly the story suffers from excessive text and convoluted grammar which is to be expected as it was written in 1898 but which reduces the impact of the horror being described as the reader has to wade through pages of verbiage between incidents. Hence the 4 stars.

Best read by candlelight at dead of night!

One person found this helpful

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Turn of the Screw (Unabridged Start Publishing LLC) Kindle Edition

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