The Turn of the Screw

The story had held us, round the fire, sufficiently breathless, but except the obvious remark that it was gruesome, as, on Christmas Eve in an old house, a strange tale should essentially be, I remember no comment uttered till somebody happened to say that it was the only case he had met in which such a visitation had fallen on a child…

…it casts a spell not merely shadowy but extensive: it feels longer than it is…James…keeps the tension mounting. His story grows ever grimmer, ever scarier…[and] presents a bracing account of rampant terror. THE NEW YORKER