In January 1895, when Henry James was in the depths of depression due to the failure of his play Guy Domville, the Archbishop of Canterbury told him the story that became The Turn of the Screw which first appeared in serial format in Collier's Weekly magazine. James let the story ferment in his mind for more than two-and-a-half years before he set to work on it. In October 1898, the story appeared in The Two Magics, a book published by Macmillan.In the century following its publication, The Turn of the Screw became a cornerstone text of academics who subscribed to New Criticism. It has had differing interpretations, often mutually exclusive. Many critics have tried to determine the exact nature of the evil hinted at by the story. However, the brilliance of the novel results from its ability to create an intimate sense of confusion and suspense within the reader. For example, the story has had enormous influence, indirectly, on the structure and tone of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, begun very soon after Conrad read The Turn of the Screw. The story, on publication, caused strong reaction. The New York Tribune called it and ldquo;one of the most thrilling stories we have ever read and rdquo;, the Outlook called it and ldquo;distinctly repulsive and rdquo;, the Bookman and ldquo;cruel and untrue and rdquo;, the Independent and ldquo;the most hopelessly evil story that we could have read in any literature and rdquo;.This novel has been the subject of a range of adaptations and reworkings in a variety of media and these reworking and adaptations have, themselves, been analysed in academic literature on Henry James and neo-Victorian culture. Benjamin Britten's opera based on the novel was first produced. Thereafter, the novel was adopted by various media in different forms.
Henry James, (15th April, 1843, New York, U.S.A. and mdash;28th February, 1916, London, U.K.), was an American-British essayist, critic, author of the realism movement and a great figure in the transatlantic culture. His fundamental theme of writings was the innocence and exuberance of the New World in clash with the corruption and wisdom of the Old, as illustrated in his most famous works such as Daisy Miller (1879), The Portrait of a Lady (1881), The Bostonians (1886), The Turn of the Screw (1898) and The Ambassadors (1903).Henry James was born into a wealthy and educated family in New York and named for his father, a prominent social theorist and lecturer. His father was a well-known clergyman and a rich intellectual having connections with some of the most influential and educated people of the time. Education was of utmost importance to Henry and rsquo;s family. Henry and rsquo;s siblings like Henry were also accomplished individuals in their own rights in life. His brother William James was a philosopher while his sister Alice James, a diarist.James and rsquo; career was one of the longest and most productive and most influential, in American letters. A master of prose fiction from the first, he practiced it as a fertile innovator, enlarged the form and placed upon it the stamp of a highly individual method and style. During the fifty years of his literary career, which spanned the period from the end of the American Civil War to the beginning of World War I, James produced 20 novels, 112 tales, 12 plays, several volumes of travel books, autobiography, books of criticism, letters and literary notebooks. His first story appeared anonymously in the New York Continental Monthly and his first book reviews in the North American Review. When William Dean Howells became editor of The Atlantic Monthly, James found in him a friend and mentor who published him regularly. James and Howells inaugurated the era of American and lsquo;realism and rsquo;.James and rsquo; literary career can be divided into three periods and mdash;the early period, the middle years and the and ldquo;later manner and rdquo; or, more popularly, the major phase. Works of early period include Roderick Hudson, The American and The Portrait of a Lady. Works of middle period include The Princess Casamassima, The Bostonians, The Spoils of Poynton, The Turn of the Screw and The Awkward Age. And the works of final phase include The Wings of the Dove, The Ambassadors and The Golden Bowl.
