The Turn of the Screw And Other Short Novels - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0451524721 ISBN 13: 9780451524720

Publisher: Penguin, 1991

Synopsis

A collection of six short novels from the celebrated author of The Portrait of a Lady and Washington Square...

By turns chilling, funny, tragic, and profound, Henry James's short novels allow readers to experience the full range of his skills and vision. The title story, a chilling masterpiece of psychological terror, mixes the phantoms of the mind with those of the supernatural. "Daisy Miller," the tale of a provincial American girl in Rome that established James's literary reputation, and "An International Episode" are superb examples of his focus on the clash between American and European values. And in "The Aspern Papers," "The Alter of the Dead," and "The Beast in the Jungle," the author's remarkable sense of irony, his love of plot twists, and his view of male-female relationships find exquisite expression.

With an Introduction by Fred Kaplan

About this title

Review:

Much imitated ... but no one comes near the finesse of the master ( The Times)

Timelessly unsettling ( Guardian)

About the Author:

Henry James (1843-1916) spent his early life in America but often traveled with his celebrated family to Europe. After briefly attending Harvard, he began to contribute both criticism and tales to magazines. Later, he visited Europe and began Roderick Hudson. Late in 1875, he settled in Paris, where he met Turgenev, Flaubert, and Zola and wrote The American. In 1876, he moved to London, where two years later he achieved international fame with Daisy Miller. His other famous works include The Portrait of a Lady (1881), The Princess Casamassma (1886), The Wings of the Dove (1902), and The Golden Bowl (1904). In 1915, a few months before his death, he became a British subject.

Fred Kaplan is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of English at Queens College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. He is the author of The Singular Mark Twain, A Biography; Gore Vidal, A Biography; Henry James, The Imagination of Genius and Charles Dickens, A Biography. His Thomas Carlyle was a finalist for the National Book Critics' Circle Award and was a jury-nominated finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Other works include Sacred Tears: Sentimentality in Victorian Literature, Dickens and Mesmerism: the Hidden Spring of Fiction, and Miracles of Rare Device: The Poet's Sense of Self in Nineteenth-Century Poetry.

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin
• Publication date: 1991
• ISBN 10: 0451524721
• ISBN 13: 9780451524720
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Number of pages: 456