Why was Miles expelled from school? And who is the haunting man in the tower who seems to know something about it?

Henry James, today on the Classic Tales podcast.

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Today's story is one of the most well-crafted ghost stories ever written. The Turn of the Screw is famous for a reason.

I hope you like it. And now, The Turn of the Screw, Part 1 of 3 by Henry James.

Prologue. The story had held us round the fire sufficiently breathless,

but except the obvious remark that it was gruesome,

as on Christmas Eve in an old house a strange tale should essentially be,

I remember no comment uttered, till somebody happened to say

that it was the only case he had met in which such a visitation had fallen on a child.

The case, I may mention, was that of an apparition in just such an old house as had gathered

us for the occasion, an appearance of a dreadful kind,

to a little boy sleeping in the room with his mother, and waking her up in the terror of it,

waking her not to dissipate his dread and soothe him to sleep again, but to encounter also

herself, before she had succeeded in doing so the

same sight that had shaken him. It was this observation that drew from Douglas, not immediately,

but later in the evening, a reply that had the interesting consequence to which I call attention.

Someone else told a story, not particularly

...