The Turn of the Screw is Henry James's most enduring and unsettling work of psychological fiction. Framed as a manuscript read aloud among friends, the novel follows a young governess sent to care for two orphaned children at a remote English estate, where her growing conviction that the house is haunted begins to shape every event that follows.

As the governess attempts to protect her charges from what she believes to be malevolent supernatural forces, the boundary between external threat and internal obsession steadily erodes. James constructs a narrative of deliberate ambiguity, leaving readers to question whether the horrors described are real apparitions or manifestations of the narrator's troubled perceptions.

First published in 1898, The Turn of the Screw has become a cornerstone of Gothic literature and modern psychological storytelling, widely studied for its intricate narrative structure and unresolved tensions. Its influence can be seen across ghost fiction, horror, and literary modernism.

This Hawthorne Classics edition presents the original public-domain text in a clean, carefully prepared format designed for clarity, consistency, and long-term reading.