The turn of the screw was written in the latter part of 1897 to a commission from Collier’s weekly, the popular American news and arts magazine. In it James worked up an idea he had been given, and had noted, over two years earlier, during a dinner with the Archbishop of Canterbury. Coincidental with the start of serial publication in January 1898, copyright deposit copies of the text were made in the UK, but the volume containing the tale wasn’t published until October (on both sides of the Atlantic). The text was revised by James in 1908 for his New York edition. Full details of the many later collections of James’s work known to me containing the tale can be found on the relevant page of my index to Henry James’s tales in collections.

The text for the edition on this website is taken from the first UK book edition in The two magics (1898), subject to changes required by the editor’s standard editorial method. Quite a few corrections have had to be made in preparing this text from the source edition, many of them suggesting that the type, which may have stood in galleys from the printing of copyright deposit texts in January 1898 until the production of the book in the autumn, had suffered some print-shop vicissitudes. Other changes have been required to standardize majority readings on the Ladder. All the emendations are detailed below (allowing for my usual single- to double-quote change on speech) :

location in 1898
Macmillan edition 		original text correction
page 7, line ? Good night Good-night
page 15, lines 6–7 dis<space><newline>
tinguished 		distinguished
page 19, line 30 was<space> was,
page 24, line 2 before?’ before?”
page 37, line 18 muff,) muff)
page 45, line 26 you<space> But you. But
page 53, line 20 publichouse public house
page 56, line 31 <space>he question the question
page 79, line 10 disarranged,) disarranged)
page 79, line 20 prodigious,) prodigious)
page 89, line 16 <space>t was only it was only
page 116, line 28 necessary,) necessary)
page 121, line 21 no never no, never
page 121, line 30 phrase,) phrase)
page 123, line 19 goodhumour good humour
page 131, line 21 Miss?— Miss? –
page 131, line 23 she<space>s she’s
page 135, line 17 shew ent she went
page 146, line 17 good night good-night
page 154, line 15 come,) come)
page 164, line 25 <space>Did “Did
page 165, line 15 se<displaced sort ‘a’> sea
page 167, line 28 more!”<space> more!” I

The script used in preparing the downloadable ASCII version of this text counted 42,776 words in it.

Because of the production method the text has been proof-read twice, but only by this editor, so it is possible that an error has slipped through both times – offers of proofing assistance will be gratefully received.