The Turn of the Screw

by Henry James

The Turn of the Screw: Summary


A Terrible Tale
The Turn of the Screw begins on Christmas Eve during the 1890s, in an old house, where a group of men and women friends are gathered around a fireside telling ghost stories. When the book starts, somebody has just finished telling a particularly gruesome tale involving a ghost and a child. Later in the evening, a man named Douglas comments on this tale, saying that he agrees that since the tale involves a child, it magnifies the horrific effect, which he refers to as "another turn of the screw." He proposes to top this tale with a ghost story...

(The entire page is 1408 words.)

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