The Turn of The Screw and Other Short Novels

by Henry James, Fred Kaplan (Introduction)

Overview

By turns chilling, funny, tragic, and profound, this collection of six Henry James short novels allows readers to experience the full range of his skills and vision.

The title story, “The Turn of the Screw,” is a chilling masterpiece of psychological terror that mixes the phantoms of the mind with those of the supernatural.

“Daisy Miller,” the tale of a provincial American girl in Rome that established James’s literary reputation, and “An International Episode” are superb examples of his focus on the clash between American and European values.

And in “The Aspern Papers,” “The Alter of the Dead,” and “The Beast in the Jungle,” the author’s remarkable sense of irony, his love of plot twists, and his view of male-female relationships find exquisite expression.
 
 
With an Introduction by Fred Kaplan

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781440620935
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	09/04/2007
Series:	Signet Classics Series
Sold by:	Penguin Group
Format:	eBook
Pages:	464
File size:	847 KB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Henry James (1843–1916) spent his early life in America but often traveled with his celebrated family to Europe. After briefly attending Harvard, he began to contribute both criticism and tales to magazines. Later, he visited Europe and began Roderick Hudson. Late in 1875, he settled in Paris, where he met Turgenev, Flaubert, and Zola and wrote The American. In 1876, he moved to London, where two years later he achieved international fame with Daisy Miller. His other famous works include The Portrait of a Lady (1881), The Princess Casamassma (1886), The Wings of the Dove (1902), and The Golden Bowl (1904). In 1915, a few months before his death, he became a British subject.
 
Fred Kaplan is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of English at Queens College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. He is the author of The Singular Mark Twain, A Biography; Gore Vidal, A Biography; Henry James, The Imagination of Genius and Charles Dickens, A Biography. His Thomas Carlyle was a finalist for the National Book Critics’ Circle Award and was a jury-nominated finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Other works include Sacred Tears: Sentimentality in Victorian Literature, Dickens and Mesmerism: the Hidden Spring of Fiction, and Miracles of Rare Device: The Poet’s Sense of Self in Nineteenth-Century Poetry. 

Date of Birth:

April 15, 1843

Date of Death:

February 28, 1916

Place of Birth:

New York, New York

Place of Death:

London, England

Education:

Attended school in France and Switzerland; Harvard Law School, 1862-63