A desperate scholar infiltrates a crumbling Venetian palace to hunt for the private papers of a deceased romantic poet. He enters a psychological duel with an elderly woman who guards the secrets of the past with fierce tenacity. This suspenseful narrative explores the dark obsession of the historian and the sanctuary of privacy.

A governess is hired by a bachelor to take care of his nephew and niece. She has barely arrives at the house that she starts seeing ghosts and having other supernatural visions. She decides to share her frightening experience with the maid of the house, Mrs. Grose. The maid, however, is not surprised and tells the governess that the ghosts are those of Peter Quint and Miss Jessel.What are the ghosts doing in the house? Were Peter Quint and Miss Jessel murdered? Are they seek reveng...

The Turn of the Screw is a short novel or a novella written by American writer Henry James. Originally published in 1898, it is ostensibly a ghost story that has lent itself well to operatic and film adaptation. Due to its ambiguous content and narrative skill, The Turn of the Screw became a favorite text of New Criticism.The account has lent itself to dozens of different interpretations, often mutually exclusive, including those of a Freudian nature. Many critics have tried to det...

This volume collects the complete novels of Henry James (in the chronological order of their original publication): - Watch and Ward - Roderick Hudson - The American - The Europeans - Confidence - Washington Square - The Portrait of a Lady - The Bostonians - The Princess Casamassima - The Reverberator - The Tragic Muse - The Other House - The Spoils of Poynton - What Maisie Knew - The Awkward Age - The Sacred Fount - The Wings of the Dove - The Ambassadors - The Golden Bowl - The Outcry - ...

Perhaps the most brilliantly successful ghost story ever written, The Turn of the Screw creates a terrifyingly believable impression of children so corrupted by evil that they remain deceptive pictures of innocent beauty. Their governess must struggle alone to confront and exorcise the demons which she believes possess their souls… Published in 1898, the story was immediately met with glowing reviews. It remains one of Henry James’s most popular works.

A young governess arrives at Bly, a country home in Essex, England, to care for Miles and Flora, two precocious and pure children. But as ghostly visions take shape, the obsessively protective governess soon fears for the safety of her wards—only to wonder if these hauntings are a conjuring of her own imagination. In challenging what we see—and what we believe we see—in the dark of the night, The Turn of the Screw stands as one of the boldest and most chilling ghost stories ever told.

Concerned that her son Chad may have become involved with a woman of dubious reputation, the formidable Mrs Newsome sends her 'ambassador' Strether from Massachusetts to Paris to extricate him. Strether's mission, however, is gradually undermined as he falls under the spell of the city and finds Chad refined rather than corrupted by its influence and that of his charming companion, the comtesse de Vionnet. As the summer wears on, Mrs Newsome comes to the conclusion that she must send anoth...

A young, inexperienced governess is charged with the care of Miles and Flora, two small children abandoned by their uncle at his grand country house. She sees the figure of an unknown man on the tower and his face at the window. It is Peter Quint, the master's dissolute valet, and he has come for little Miles. But Peter Quint is dead. Like the other tales collected here - `Sir Edmund Orme', `Owen Wingrave', and `The Friends of the Friends' - `The Turn of the Screw' is to all immediate appe...

The story had held us, round the fire, sufficiently breathless, but except the obvious remark that it was gruesome, as, on Christmas Eve in an old house, a strange tale should essentially be, I remember no comment uttered till somebody happened to say that it was the only case he had met in which such a visitation had fallen on a child. The case, I may mention, was that of an apparition in just such an old house as had gathered us for the occasion—an appearance, of a dreadful kind, to a li...

'She knew of no wrong that he had done; he was not violent, he was not cruel; she simply believed that he hated her'When Isabel Archer, a beautiful, spirited American, is brought to Europe by her wealthy aunt Touchett, it is expected that she will soon marry. But Isabel, resolved to enjoy her freedom, does not hesitate to turn down two eligible suitors. Then she finds herself irresistibly drawn to Gilbert Osmond. Charming and cultivated, Osmond sees Isabel as a ric...

In Henry James' gothic ghost story, a young governess is brought to a country home to care for two orphans whose previous governess had recently died. The house is large and remote, and the children cute and precocious—the job seems like a dream come true. Soon, however, she begins to sense an evil lurking in the grand estate. She sees supernatural figures appear on the grounds, who she comes to believe are the ghosts of the previous governess and another member of staff who both died unde...

A gifted American artist finds fame, fortune, and tragedy in Europe in this classic tale.Working in obscurity, sculptor Roderick Hudson finds a generous patron in Rowland Mallet, an art aficionado so captivated by the young man's work, he offers to take Hudson with him to Europe. Mallet soon falls in love with Miss Mary Garland, a distant cousin of Hudson's who lives with the family and tends to his aging mother. Unfortunately, Hudson has already proposed to Mary.