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The Turn of the Screw

The Turn of the Screw

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The Turn of the Screw

by Henry James

  • Used
  • Acceptable
  • Hardcover
  • first
Condition
Acceptable
Seller
Seller rating:
This seller has earned a 5 of 5 Stars rating from Biblio customers.
Goring-by-Sea, West Sussex, United Kingdom
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£182.75
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About This Item

Martin Secker, 1915. Hardcover. Acceptable. 1915. First Edition Thus. 205 pages. No dust jacket. Brown cloth boards with gilt lettering. Half title page states Uniform Edition. Clean pages with light tanning and mild foxing throughout. More pronounced to free endpaper and pastedowns. Front free endpaper is missing. Hinges are slightly cracked with exposed netting. Upper textblock edge dyed gilt. Binding remains firm. pp29-48 have some notable marginal creasing. Faint pen marks to front pastedown. Boards have moderate edge-wear with bumping to corners and rubbing to surfaces. Gilt lettering is darkened. Moderate sunning to spine and edges with crushing to spine ends. Minor wear marks to boards. Tiny hole to upper front joint.

Synopsis

The Turn of the Screw is a short novel or a novella written by U.S. -born British author Henry James. Originally published in 1898, it is ostensibly a ghost story that has lent itself well to operatic and film adaptation. Due to its ambiguous content and narrative skill, The Turn of the Screw became a favorite text of New Criticism. The account has lent itself to dozens of different interpretations, often mutually exclusive, including those of a Freudian nature.

Reviews

On May 24 2023, a reader said:
The Turn Of The Screw is a gothic novella by British author Henry James in which an inexperienced young governess, a parson's daughter, takes a position at a country house looking after two children. The master of the house, their uncle, gives her full authority, wanting no communication about the children.

Her welcome to the house by the housekeeper, Mrs Grose, is genuine, and she is immediately taken with the little girl, Flora. Her brother Miles arrives a few days later, inexplicably dismissed from his boarding school: he seems to be a delightful boy.

Things change when the unnamed governess spots first a man (who is apparently the ghost of the master's valet, Peter Quint) and then a woman, the ghost of the previous governess, Miss Jessel. From just their gaze, she discerns that these two are after the children.

She manages to drag information about them and their relationship from the reluctant Mrs Grose and, between them, they decide they have to protect the children from the harm they believe the apparitions intend. Her vigils yield more sightings of the two, and the governess is even more certain of their ill intent.

As time progresses, though, the governess begins to wonder if it is too late: the children seem to already be happily in the thrall of these two. Should she, against instructions, contact their uncle?

For a twenty-first Century reader, this classic, however well written, will likely be a chore to read, a characteristic of the dense nineteenth Century prose being verbosity: why use one word when ten or fifteen will do, and the small print doesn't help the reader's search for the relevant point in each sentence.

For example, "Yet when he at last arrived the difficulty of applying them, the accumulations of my problem, were brought straight home to me by the beautiful little presence on which what had occurred had as yet, for the eye, dropped neither stain nor shadow" is a sentence that might be distilled into a few words, if only the meaning could intuited, but really, life's too short to bother. In this case, maybe the movie will be better than the book.

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Details

Bookseller
World of Rare Books GB (GB)
Bookseller's Inventory #
1712320340LEE
Title
The Turn of the Screw
Author
Henry James
Format/Binding
Hardcover
Book Condition
Used - Acceptable
Quantity Available
1
Publisher
Martin Secker
Date Published
1915

Terms of Sale

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About the Seller

World of Rare Books

Seller rating:
This seller has earned a 5 of 5 Stars rating from Biblio customers.
Biblio member since 2009
Goring-by-Sea, West Sussex

About World of Rare Books

Wob sells rare and collectable books on behalf of charities. Our team of booksellers are happy to deal with any enquiries and aim to provide same-day dispatch for all orders.

Glossary

Some terminology that may be used in this description includes:

Spine
The outer portion of a book which covers the actual binding. The spine usually faces outward when a book is placed on a shelf....
Jacket
Sometimes used as another term for dust jacket, a protective and often decorative wrapper, usually made of paper which wraps...
Uniform Edition
A collection or series of individual volumes of an author's work bound to match with a uniform size and style. Especially common...
Gilt
The decorative application of gold or gold coloring to a portion of a book on the spine, edges of the text block, or an inlay in...
Cracked
In reference to a hinge or a book's binding, means that the glue which holds the opposing leaves has allowed them to separate,...
Title Page
A page at the front of a book which may contain the title of the book, any subtitles, the authors, contributors, editors, the...
Cloth
"Cloth-bound" generally refers to a hardcover book with cloth covering the outside of the book covers. The cloth is stretched...
First Edition
In book collecting, the first edition is the earliest published form of a book. A book may have more than one first edition in...
Edges
The collective of the top, fore and bottom edges of the text block of the book, being that part of the edges of the pages of a...
Half Title
The blank front page which appears just prior to the title page, and typically contains only the title of the book, although, at...
Rubbing
Abrasion or wear to the surface. Usually used in reference to a book's boards or dust-jacket.
Acceptable
A non-traditional book condition description that generally refers to a book in readable condition, although no standard exists...

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