by Henry James
First published 1898
A young woman takes her first position as governess to two children, Miles and Flora, at an isolated country estate. The children are beautiful but strangely distant and unnaturally quiet. Soon the governess begins seeing figures lurking in towers and peering through windows. These phantoms draw closer each day and night, and she realizes they seek to corrupt the children's bodies and possess their souls. The governess discovers something far more disturbing than the presence of malevolent spirits. Miles and Flora show no fear of the supernatural visitors. Instead, the children desire contact with these dark entities as much as the dead crave them. The governess finds herself helpless against forces that threaten not just her charges' safety, but their very souls. She must confront an evil that has already begun to claim the children she was hired to protect.
Genres: classic-literature, literary-fiction, horror, supernatural, psychological-thriller, gothic
Vibes: ambiguous, atmospheric, haunting, psychological, suspenseful, unsettling
Tropes: corruption-of-innocence, haunted-location, psychological-descent, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Country Estate
Period: 19th Century
121 pages · Paperback · Penguin Books
Content warnings: child-abuse