Much like this book, we’ll keep it short: In contrast with our other Heathen Editions (so far), our editing of this book has been kept to a minimum, having only updated a few instances of good-nights and to-days to their modern equivalents. The majority of our work has been with the footnotes, mostly to provide definitions for the various archaic words that James used throughout the text, and references to the various books and locales from which he drew inspiration.

As an Afterword, we have included an excerpt from the Preface that James wrote for his 1908 New York Edition, which provides some background as to how the story originated, and James’ thoughts on its success and criticisms after its initial publication ten years earlier, first being serialized in Collier’s Weekly magazine in 1898, then appearing later that same year in the book The Two Magics.

We hope you enjoy this book as much as we Heathens do!

And if this is your first time reading The Turn of the Screw, then you might want to read it with all the lights on. *mischievous giggle*

P.S. If you’re looking for a great companion piece to this “deliciously elusive” story, we highly recommend Jack Clayton’s 1961 film The Innocents co-written by Truman Capote (!) and starring Deborah Kerr. In the realm of adaptations that equal and possibly even surpass the original source material, The Innocents sits very high on the list.

“The Turn of the Screw is one of the most chilling ghost stories ever, largely because it is so deliciously elusive.” –Gillian Flynn

“Cruel and untrue.” –Bookman

“Distinctly repulsive.” –Outlook

“A most wonderful, lurid poisonous little tale.” –Oscar Wilde

“One of the most thrilling stories we have ever read.” –The New York Tribune

“The most hopelessly evil story that we could have read in any literature.” –Independent

“[Henry James] is by no means a safe author to give for a Christmas gift.” –Ainlee’s Magazine

“The finest work he has ever done . . . a beautiful pearl: something perfect, rounded, calm, unforgettable.” –The American Monthly Review of Reviews

“[James] made The Turn of the Screw as frightening and dramatic as he could . . . So frightening, indeed, that he actually frightened himself. When he came to correct the proofs of the story, which was serialised over 12 issues in 1898, he told his friend Edmund Goose: ‘When I had finished them I was so frightened that I was afraid to go upstairs to bed.’” –Colm Tóibín, The Guardian

“It’s the darkest, richest ghost story I’ve ever read. Its profoundest pleasure lies in the beautifully fussed over way in which James refuses to come down on either side. In its twenty-four brief chapters, the book becomes a modest monument to the bold pursuit of ambiguity. At each rereading, you have to marvel anew at how adroitly and painstakingly James plays both sides.” –Brad Leithauser, The New Yorker

The Turn of the Screw