He did stand there! - but high up, beyond the lawn and at the very top of the tower to which. I didn't ask more than that - I only asked that he should know.Īs she amuses herself with the idea that he might show up just to please her, she is suddenly amazed that: Someone would appear there at the turn of the path and would stand before and smile and approve. One afternoon, as the daylight fades, the governess is sitting in her room alone pondering on the possibility of meeting her employer. All seems idyllic to start with, but it is not long before things start to go awry. She takes the coach to the estate and is welcomed there by the children and their housekeeper. She thinks of him constantly, but adheres to his request not to be disturbed even when she feels things are getting out of control. Apparently, she becomes attracted to her employer, even to the extent of being infatuated by him.

The governess meets with her master only twice, but these two occasions seem to have a tremendous effect upon her emotions. The position requires taking care of two young children, the advertisement having been posted by the uncle, who asks not to be disturbed, even under the most serious of circumstances. In the story Miss Giddens, a governess agrees to take a position at the estates of Bly. The germ of the story had been a half-remembered anecdote told to him by Edward White Benson, the archbishop of Canterbury: a story of small children haunted by the ghosts of a pair of servants who wish them ill. In his preface to the 1908 edition, James mentions the source of his story: It was the fashion of the day to tell frightening ghost stories on Christmas Eve. Rather, he was more interested in real ghosts, 'the strange and sinister embroidered on the very type of the normal and easy,' as he put it in the preface to the New York Edition of his final ghost story, The Jolly Corner.īeing a popular form in England and America, James had written ghost stories before The Turn of the Screw. He was not attracted to those ghosts who appear in white sheets frightening those around. James's interest, however, was not in the stereotypical ghost stories. James wrote The Turn of the Screw at a time when there was a prevalent fondness for ghost stories. Some critics, therefore, picture him as a repressed or clandestine homosexual.

Throughout his biography there is no mention of him getting married or even being involved in any romantic encounters. He was a reserved person who loved to keep his distance from people. In actual life Henry James (1843-1916) was reported to be a loner despite the many friends around him.

Ghost stories by henry james