The Turn of the Screw Genre

Horror Fiction

The Turn of the Screw is one of the great horror stories of all time—since its publication, it's been incredibly influential on the genre as a whole.

The most amazing thing about it is the way in which James manages to scare the pants off his readers without having to describe any gruesome or terrible things in great detail. Think about it—by leaving most of the creepy stuff up to the reader's imagination, rather than working unrelentingly to show us what's so scary, James succeeds in creating a haunting, memorable, and truly eerie story.