The Turn of the Screw and Other Stories

ISBN-13: 9781551119113 / Angielski / Miękka / 2010 / 304 str.

Henry James

Opis

In 1898, James wrote a ghost story that would become one of the most famous such tales ever written, The Turn of the Screw; the story generated more critical discussion in the twentieth century than perhaps any other fictional work in English. James's stories of the supernatural, three other examples of which are included in this edition, reveal on both the thematic and narrative levels his deepest concerns as a writer. In "The Altar of the Dead" and "The Beast in the Jungle," the protagonists are obsessed with the unseen: in the former, the main character devotes his life to remembering his dead, while in the latter, the protagonist spends his entire life awaiting the catastrophe that he is convinced has been reserved exclusively for him. In "The Jolly Corner," a man is convinced that his childhood home is haunted by his double, the person he might have become. The texts are all drawn from the authoritative New York Edition of James's works. Appendices include material on the tales' reception, James's writings on the supernatural, and the study of the supernatural in the nineteenth century.

Spis treści

Acknowledgements
Introduction
Henry James: A Brief Chronology
A Note on the Texts

Tales

• “The Altar of the Dead”
  “The Beast in the Jungle”
  “The Jolly Corner”

The Turn of the Screw

Appendix A: The Ghostly Tales: Inspiration and Reception

1. From Henry James, A Small Boy and Others (1913)
2. From Henry James Sr., Society the Redeemed Form of Man (1879)
3. From William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience (1929)
4. From Henry James, Letter to Mary Walsh James (26 March 1870)
5. From Henry James, Notes of a Son and Brother (1914)
6. From Henry James, The American Scene (1907)
7. From Henry James, Letter to Frederick A. Duneka (28 August 1906)
8. From Henry James’s Notebooks (1904–05)
9. Contemporary Reviews of “The Altar of the Dead”
1. Harper’s New Monthly Magazine (May 1896)
2. William Dean Howells, Harper’s Weekly (27 July 1896)
10. Contemporary Reviews of The Turn of the Screw
1. Oscar Wilde, Letter to Robert Boss ([?]12 January 1899)
2. From Literature (15 October 1898)
3. From “Mr. James’s New Stories,” Athenaeum (22 October 1898)
4. From “Henry James as a Ghost Raiser,” Life (10 November 1898)
5. From Illustrated London News (3 December 1898)

Appendix B: The Study of the Supernatural in Nineteenth-Century England and America

1. From William James, “Certain Phenomena of Trance” (1890)
2. From The Times (28 December 1898)
3. From Catherine S. Crowe, The Night-Side of Nature or Ghosts and Ghost Seers (1848)
4. From William T. Stead, Real Ghost Stories (1897)

Appendix C: Excerpts from Henry James’s Nonfiction Writing about the Supernatural

1. From Henry James, “Is There Life After Death?” (1910)
2. Henry James’s Review of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1888)
3. From Henry James’s Prefaces to the Tales (1906–08)
1. From the Preface to The Turn of the Screw
2. From the Preface to “The Altar of the Dead,” “The Beast in the Jungle,” and “The Jolly Corner”
4. From Henry James’s Notebooks (1879–1914)

Appendix D: Other Writers and Artists on James

1. From Edith Wharton, A Backward Glance (1934)
2. From T.S. Eliot, “On Henry James” (1918)
3. From Virginia Woolf, “Henry James’s Ghost Stories” (1921)
4. Charles Demuth’s Illustrations for “The Beast in the Jungle”
5. Max Beerbohm on James’s Return to the United States (1904)

Select Bibliography and Filmography