The Collected Supernatural and Weird Fiction of Henry James: Volume 3

Volume three—of four—of the ghostliest of Henry James' fiction

Henry James was a notable American author who lived and worked in England for forty years of his life—becoming a nationalised British subject shortly before his death. He is especially remembered for his portrayal of Americans abroad and for the creativity and freedom he displayed within his diverse literary perspectives. His novels remain highly regarded and continually read. Among them are Washington Square, The Bostonians, The Ambassadors and others. In any list of James' notable achievements one title frequently appears first—just as in every list of the most highly regarded supernatural fiction a James work is also certain to appear. That story is, of course, the novella, 'The Turn of the Screw'—a tale of creeping supernatural threat, terror, polluted innocence and inevitable tragedy. It is a deserved classic of supernatural fiction and true to the nature of such things subordinates James's other work in the genre almost to obscurity. Predictably a prolific author who had both a talent for and an interest in the fiction of the bizarre and ghostly would be unlikely to venture into its shadowy realms but once. This special Leonaur collection of Henry James' supernatural fiction fills four substantial volumes for modern readers to relish. A veritable literary feast is in store for those who dare to venture within its pages.
This penultimate volume—available in soft cover and cloth bound hardcover with dust jacket—leads off with the novella 'The Passionate Pilgrim.' Among the other tales are eight novelettes including 'The Ghostly Rental,' 'The Next Time' and 'Nona Vincent' as well as the short story 'Collaboration.'

At ten o’clock that evening the pair separated, as usual, on the upper landing, outside their respective doors, for the night; but Miss Amy had hardly set down her candle on her dressing-table before she was startled by an extraordinary sound, which appeared to proceed not only from her companion’s room, but from her companion’s throat. It was something she would have described, had she ever described it, as between a gurgle and a shriek, and it brought Amy Frush, after an interval of stricken stillness that gave her just time to say to herself “Someone under her bed!” breathlessly and bravely back to the landing. She had not reached it, however, before her neighbour, bursting in, met her and stayed her.<br>
“There’s someone in my room!”<br>
They held each other. “But who?”<br>
“A man.”<br>
“Under the bed?”<br>
“No—just standing there.”<br>
They continued to hold each other, but they rocked. “Standing? Where? How?”<br>
“Why, right in the middle—before my dressing-glass.”<br>
Amy’s blanched face by this time matched her mate’s, but its terror was enhanced by speculation. “To look at himself?”<br>
“No—with his back to it. To look at me,” poor Susan just audibly breathed. “To keep me off,” she quavered. “In strange clothes—of another age; with his head on one side.”<br>
Amy wondered. “On one side?”<br>
“Awfully!” the refugee declared while, clinging together, they sounded each other.<br>
This, somehow, for Miss Amy, was the convincing touch; and on it, after a moment, she was capable of the effort of darting back to close her own door. “You’ll remain then with me.”<br>
“Oh!” Miss Susan wailed with deep assent; quite, as if, had she been a slangy person, she would have ejaculated ‘Rather!’ So they spent the night together; with the assumption thus marked, from the first, both that it would have been vain to confront their visitor as they didn’t even pretend to each other that they would have confronted a house-breaker; and that by leaving the place at his mercy nothing worse could happen than had already happened. It was Miss Amy’s approaching the door again as with intent ear and after a hush that had represented between them a deep and extraordinary interchange—it was this that put them promptly face to face with the real character of the occurrence. “Ah,” Miss Susan, still under her breath, portentously exclaimed, “it isn’t anyone—!”<br>
“No”—her partner was already able magnificently to take her up. “It isn’t anyone—”<br>
“Who can really hurt us”—Miss Susan completed her thought. And Miss Amy, as it proved, had been so indescribably prepared that this thought, before morning, had, in the strangest, finest way, made for itself an admirable place with them. The person the elder of our pair had seen in her room was not—well, just simply was not any one in from outside. He was a different thing altogether. Miss Amy had felt it as soon as she heard her friend’s cry and become aware of her commotion; as soon, at all events, as she saw Miss Susan’s face. That was all—and there it was. There had been something hitherto wanting, they felt, to their small state and importance; it was present now, and they were as handsomely conscious of it as if they had previously missed it.