E X T E N S I O N THE TURN OF THE SCREW Traditionally, Henry James got his idea for this chilling1 tale from a friend of his, E.W. Benson, the Archbishop of Canterbury. Henry went to stay with him at his house, Addington Park, for Christmas, and it was a custom at this time of year to tell frightening stories around the fireplace.The Archbishop apparently half remembered a vague story about some children in an old house with two dead servants, but no more than that. It was enough however, for Henry to write E. W. Benson down his idea for a new tale two days later in his notebook: The story of young (indefinite in age and number) left to the care of servants in an old country house through death of parents. The servants, wicked and depraved 2, corrupt the children the children are bad, full of evil to a sinister degree.The servants die . Perhaps the Archbishop s half-remembered tale really did inspire Henry and it is certainly a more romantic source of his tale. A more realistic one is a story which appeared in a magazine, very similar to the one in which The Turn of the Screw was published. In 1855, when Henry was a young boy, Frank Leslie s New York Journal serialized a story called Temptation. It was more elaborate and conventional than Henry s story, but it contained valets, housekeepers and governesses and children who are victims of evil. The most sinister character s name is Peter Quin, while his helper, trained by him, is called Miles. There is a house in Harley Street in the story, and there are a brother and sister, Felix and Fanny. Felix dies in the end, and Quin is hanged3 by his helper, Miles. When the very popular monthly magazine Collier s Review asked him to write a serialized ghost story in 1897, he did not have to look far for an idea. This rather melodramatic story had stayed in Henry s mind over the years, and together with the Archbishop s forgotten story, formed the beginning of The Turn of the Screw. He borrowed the names, but he added and underlined the sense of evil, the strange power of Peter Quin, and the idea of the children as victims. 1. chilling: frightening. 2. depraved: morally bad. 3. hanged: killed by tying a rope round a person s neck. 80