Source criticism

Abstract

Fascinating source studies for The Turn of the Screw abound, most of which deal with James’s adherence to or departure from Gothic and melodramatic conventions. The specific genesis of the tale, as recounted by James in his Preface to the volume of the New York Edition containing it, is well-known: in January 1895, James heard a story of small children menaced by the spirits of wicked servants on a remote estate; somewhat paradoxically, this account of hellish visitation was related by Edward White Benson, Archbishop of Canterbury. Like the ‘germs’ or données of so many of James’s fictions, this one consisted of the merest description of a potentially melodramatic situation and almost no details at all. Indeed, James had something of a reputation among those who knew his work habits for resisting the full account of a story that struck him as having fictional potential and allowing nothing to interfere with his sui generis elaboration of it.