Turn of the Screw

Emily Allen
August 5, 2003
English

The Turn of the Screw
By: Henry James


The story begins with a group of friends sit around the fireplace of an old house in 1890s England, telling ghost stories. A man named Griffin tells a ghost story featuring a little boy, and a man named Douglas proposes to tell a true story about two children. Douglas keeps the manuscript of the story locked in a drawer at home in London. It was written by a woman, now dead, who was once his younger sister's governess and with whom he was in love. Three days later, the manuscript arrives by the post, and Douglas begins his story.
Douglas explains that the young woman had interviewed for her first governess job with a gentleman on London's Harley Street, before reading the manuscript. She was quite smitten with him, and he was able to convince her to accept the position of governess to his niece and nephew at his country house Bly. The previous governess ...