The Turn of the Screw is an 1898 horror novella by Henry James which first
appeared in serial format in Collier's Weekly (January 27 ? April 16, 1898). In
October 1898, it was collected in The Two Magics, published by Macmillan in New
York City and Heinemann in London. The novella follows a governess who, caring
for two children at a remote estate, becomes convinced that the grounds are
haunted. The Turn of the Screw is considered a work of both Gothic and horror
fiction. In the century following its publication, critical analysis of the
novella has undergone several major transformations. Initial reviews regarded it
only as a frightening ghost story, but, in the 1930s, some critics suggested
that the supernatural elements were figments of the governess' imagination. In
the early 1970s, the influence of structuralism resulted in an acknowledgement
that the text's ambiguity was its key feature. Later approaches incorporated
Marxist and feminist thinking.