The Turn of the Screw and What Maisie Knew

MARIANNE DeKOVEN Professor of English and Director of the Institute for Research on Women at Rutgers University SHOSHANA FELMAN Thomas E. Donnelley Professor of French and Comparative Literature at Yale University BARBARA ECKSTEIN Associate Professor of English at the University of Iowa RONALD KNOWLES Senior Lecturer in English at the University of Reading T.J.LUSTIG Lecturer in American Studies at Keele University BETH NEWMAN Associate Professor of English at Southern Methodist University, Dallas JOHN H. PEARSON Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of English at Stetson University, DeLand, Florida JULIE RIVKIN Associate Professor of English at Connecticut College JOHN CARLOS ROWE Professor of English at the University of California, Irvine RONALD SCHLEIFER Professor of English at the University of Oklahoma SHEILA TEAHAN Associate Professor of English at Michigan State University

A long-standing controversy over the 'reality' or otherwise of the ghosts has given way to a general recognition of textual ambiguity, and recent developments in criticism, including Feminist, Materialist and Poststructuralist readings, have now brought out fundamental underlying issues of gender, class and sexuality.After one hundred years, critical production on The Turn of the Screw shows no sign of abating. A long-standing controversy over the 'reality' or otherwise of the ghosts has given way to a general recognition of textual ambiguity, and recent developments in criticism, including Feminist, Materialist and Poststructuralist readings, have now brought out fundamental underlying issues of gender, class and sexuality. Also included in this volume are essays on What Maisie Knew; one of James's most lucid, yet aesthetically and morally complicated novels.