The Turn of the Screw

In January 1895, when Henry James was in the depths of depression due to the failure of his play Guy Domville, the Archbishop of Canterbury told him the story that became The Turn of the Screw which first appeared in serial format in Collier’s Weekly magazine. James let the story ferment in his mind for more than two-and-a-half years before he set to work on it. In October 1898, the story appeared in The Two Magics, a book published by Macmillan.
In the century following its publication, The Turn of the Screw became a cornerstone text of academics who subscribed to New Criticism. It has had differing interpretations, often mutually exclusive. Many critics have tried to determine the exact nature of the evil hinted at by the story. However, the brilliance of the novel results from its ability to create an intimate sense of confusion and suspense within the reader. For example, the story has had enormous influence, indirectly, on the structure and tone of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, begun very soon after Conrad read The Turn of the Screw. The story, on publication, caused strong reaction. The New York Tribune called it “one of the most thrilling stories we have ever read”, the Outlook called it “distinctly repulsive”, the Bookman “cruel and untrue”, the Independent “the most hopelessly evil story that we could have read in any literature”.
This novel has been the subject of a range of adaptations and reworkings in a variety of media, and these reworking and adaptations have, themselves, been analysed in academic literature on Henry James and neo-Victorian culture. Benjamin Britten’s opera based on the novel was first produced. Thereafter, the novel was adopted by various media in different forms.