Turn of the Screw and in the Cage

"The Turn of the Screw" tells the story of a young, inexperienced governess who takes charge of Miles and Flora, two children abandoned by their uncle at an English country house. The governess is haunted by ghosts from the childrens' past -- ghosts, it is left eerily ambiguous, either real or only in the governess's mind, but nonetheless exerting bizarre influences on young Miles. James's classic tale is as chilling now as when it was first published more than a century ago.The heroine of "In the Cage" is James's humblest -- a telegraphist in London who spends her time in "framed and wired confinement" -- but at the same time archetypal. She becomes obsessed with the upper class Captain Everard, who, "clenched in a situation" like herself, comes into the office to send secret telegrams to his lover. It is the telegraphist's yearning to somehow rescue him, and, when a chance comes to her in the form of a telegram gone astray, she succeeds. The consequences of her success, however, are nearly unbearable. Like James's other heroines -- Catherine Sloper, Isabel Archer, Milly Theale -- caged, so to speak, in inescapable situations, she must comes to terms with her disillusionment. "In the Cage" is a powerful distillation of one of James's central themes.James, Henry is the author of 'Turn of the Screw and in the Cage' with ISBN 9780613501378 and ISBN 0613501373.