Which American author wrote 'The Turn of the Screw'?

American author Henry James wrote the gothic novella The Turn of the Screw.

The work first appeared as a 12-part serial in Collier’s Weekly from January 27 to April 16, 1898, before being published in book form later that year. Its narrator is a young governess who arrives at Bly, a remote country house, to care for two children, Miles and Flora. She becomes convinced that the estate is haunted by the ghosts of Peter Quint and Miss Jessel.

James drew on a ghost story reportedly told to him by Edward White Benson, the Archbishop of Canterbury, in 1895. The novella’s power comes from its deliberate uncertainty: the apparitions may be real, or they may reflect the governess’s perceptions and psychological pressures. Critics have debated that question for more than a century.

A common mistake is treating the title as a play or film title first; James’s original work is a novella. It has inspired operas, films, television adaptations, and stage versions, including Benjamin Britten’s 1954 opera. James revised the text for the New York Edition in 1908.