Henry James (2 novels)

2 books / 3 stories

The Turn of the Screw & The Aspern Papers

The Turn of the Screw is the classic ghost story for which James is most remembered. Set in a country house, it is a chilling tale of the supernatural told by a master of the genre.

The Aspern Papers is a tale of Americans in Europe, a theme in which Henry James is at his most assured and accomplished. The author cleverly evokes the drama of comédie humaine against the settings of a Venetian palace.

Washington Square

Washington Square marks the culmination of James's apprentice period as a novelist. With sharply focused attention upon just four principal characters, James provides an acute analysis of middle-class manners and behaviour in the New York of the 1870's, a period of great change in the life of the city. This change is explored through the device of setting the novel's action during the 1840s, similarly a period of considerable turbulence as the United States experienced the onset of rapid commercial and industrial expansion.

Through the relationships between Austin Sloper, a celebrated physician, and his sister Lavinia Penniman, his daughter Catherine, and Catherine's suitor, Morris Townsend, James observes the contemporary scene as a site of competing styles and performances where authentic expression cannot be articulated or is subject to suppression.

• Author  -  Henry James
• Series / Key Character  -  n/a
• Illustrated  -  No
• Age -  Adult
• ISBN  -  various
• Publisher  -  Wordsworth Classics
• Date  -  n/a
• Format  -  Paperback
• Weight  -  275g
• Size  -  20 x 13 cm
  
• Pages  -  n/a
• RRP  -  £n/a

Awards:  n/a