The Turn of the Screw

Retold for younger readers, Henry James’ classic horror story tells the tale of a haunted house, two children, and the governess who tries to save them

Published in 1898, The Turn of the Screw is his best-known horror story. A young, inexperienced governess watches Miles and Flora, the two small children who are abandoned by their uncle at his grand country house. When the governess senses an intense evil within the house, she becomes obsessed that ghosts are trying to harm the children. She sees the figure of an unknown man on the tower and his face at the window. It is Peter Quint, the master’s dissolute valet, and he has come for little Miles. But Peter Quint is dead. This retelling has been shortened and illustrated for younger readers.