The Turn of the Screw is the classic ghost story forwhich Henry lames is best remembered. Set in anEnglish country house, it is a chilling tale of thesupernatural told by a master of the genre.

The Aspern Papers is a tale of Americans in Europe,a theme in which Henry lames is at his mostassured and accomplished. The author cleverlyevokes the drama of the comedie humaine againstthe majestic setting of a Venetian palace.

INTRODUCTION VII

THE TURN OF THE SCREW I

THE ASPERN PAPERS 95

NOTES  I9I

Wordsworth Classics are inexpensive editions designed to appeal tothe general reader and students. We commissioned teachers andspecialists to write wide-ranging, jargon-free introductions and toprovide notes that would assist the understanding of our readers,rather than interpret the stories for them. In the same spirit, becausethe pleasures of reading are inseparable from the surprises, secretsand revelations that all narratives contain, we strongly advise you toenjoy this book before naming to the Introduction.

         Editorial Adviser

         KEITH CARABINE

         Rutherford College

         The University of Kent at Canterbury

    INTRODUCTION

The Turn of the Screw and The Aspern Papers are two of HenryJames"sbest known and finest novellas. James himself described this literaryform as "for length and breadth - our ideal, the beautiful and blestnouvelle". Although he advanced no further specific theories as to thestructure, length and workings of the "shapely nouvelle", James appearsto have delighted in its scale and focus, which released him from thelimifng constraints of the short story without compelling him to fulfilthe conventional requirements of the full-length novel.

 Both novellas were originally published in serialised form, theformer appearing in the journal Collier"s Weekly from January to Aprilx898, and the latter monthly in Atlantic from March to May 1888.Each might be considered to be a supreme example of a specific genreof short story: The Aspern Papers, published in the year after SherlockHolmes had made his first fictional appearance, is a sort of historicaldetective tale, concerned with the affairs of literary life andhistoriographical research, while The Turn of the Screw is a ghost storyof the kind in which an inexplicable, supernatural apparition plays animportant part, the structure of the tale incorporating a distancingframe.

 However, closer examination reveals a number of similarities be-tween the two novellas. In the period 19o7 to i9o9 James sought toorganise his short fictions, which numbered more than one hundred,into a coherent form, grouping tales according to genetic type. Byestablishing a contextual frame of reference which exposed commonelements in the tales, James may have hoped to validate retrospectivelyhis anthorial,, aesthetic conception. This plan came to fruition as theNew York Edition of The Novels and Tales of Henry James. SignificantlyThe Turn of the Screw was not included in the volume devoted toghostly tales but was sandwiched between two other "psychologicaltales" which depict menacing, almost pathological, mania, The AspernPapers and The Liar.

 The Aspern Papers and The Turn of the Screw relate accounts ofobsessive quests for the possession of "knowledge" or "truth", a "truth"which takes the form of secret text, story or history which mayultimately reside only in the mind of the quester. The desire forpossession is a substitute for normal human relationships. The narra-tors become involved in adversarial battles with ambiguous, mysteriousprotagonists who, it is implied, embody latent, unstable aspects of thenarrators" own psycbes, impulses which they would prefer to ignore orsuppress. The narrators are potentially unreliable, sharing animpressability and susceptibility to outside influences which causesthem, as their feelings intensify, to lose control of their narratives. Bothtales are characterised by a pervasive atmosphere of emotional andsexual repression. The unrelenting pursuit of knowledge leads to anunwanted confrontation with "self-knowledge", releasing dangerousenergies which threaten the psychological equilibrium of the confused,self-deluding and disingenuous narrators. Ultimately they can only be"saved" from the "truth" by the destruction of the very object which theyhave so compulsively desired.