Search Worlds Without End

With an Introduction and Notes by Martin Scofield, University of Kent at Canterbury

Henry James was arguably the greatest practitioner of what has been called the psychological ghost story. His stories explore the region which lies between the supernatural or straightforwardly marvellous and the darker areas of the human psyche. This edition includes all ten of his ghost stories, and as such is the fullest collection currently available. The stories range widely in tone and type. They include 'The Jolly Corner', a compelling story of psychological doubling; 'Owen Wingrave', which is also a subtle parable of military tradition; 'The Friends of the Friends', a strange story of uncanny love; and 'The Private Life', which finds a shrewd, high comedy in its ghostly theme. The volume also includes James's great novella The Turn of the Screw , perhaps the most ambiguous and disturbing ghost story ever written.

• Introduction (2001) - essay by Martin Scofield
• The Romance of Certain Old Clothes - (1868) - short story
• The Ghostly Rental - (1876) - novelette
• Sir Edmund Orme - (1891) - novelette
• The Private Life - (1892) - novelette
• Owen Wingrave - (1892) - novelette
• The Friends of the Friends - (1896) - novelette
• The Turn of the Screw - (1898) - novella
• The Real Right Thing - (1899) - short story
• The Third Person - (1900) - novelette
• The Jolly Corner - (1908) - novelette

A very young woman's first job: governess for two weirdly beautiful, strangely distant, oddly silent children, Miles and Flora, at a forlorn estate haunted by a beckoning evil.

Half-seen figures who glare from dark towers and dusty windows- silent, foul phantoms who, day by day, night by night, come closer, ever closer. With growing horror, the helpless governess realizes the fiendish creatures want the children, seeking to corrupt their bodies, possess their minds, own their souls.

But worse - much worse - the governess discovers that Miles and Flora have no terror of the lurking evil. For they want the walking dead as badly as the dead want them.