Back The Turn of the Screw Afrikaans دورة اللولب Arabic Примката на призрака Bulgarian Un altre pas de rosca Catalan The Turn of the Screw German The Turn of the Screw Spanish Koxka bat estuago Basque سختتر شدن اوضاع Persian Le Tour d'écrou French Il giro di vite Italian
 First page of the 12-part serialisation of The Turn of the Screw in Collier's Weekly (January 27 – April 16, 1898) | |
| Author | Henry James |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Genre | |
| Publisher | The Macmillan Company (New York City) William Heinemann (London) |
Publication date | October 1898 |
| Publication place | United Kingdom |
| OCLC | 40043490 |
| LC Class | PS2116 .T8 1998 |
| Text | The Turn of the Screw at Wikisource |
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 country house, becomes convinced that they 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 underwent 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, though the validity of these later approaches is disputed.
The novella has been adapted several times, including a Broadway play (1950), a chamber opera (1954), two films (in 1961 and 2020), and a miniseries (2020).