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The Turn of the Screw
- Narrated by: Emma Thompson, Richard Armitage - introduction
- Length: 4 hrs and 40 mins
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Publisher's summary
Academy Award, Golden Globe, and Emmy winner Emma Thompson lends her immense talent and experienced voice to Henry James' Gothic ghost tale, The Turn of the Screw.
When a governess is hired to care for two children at a British country estate, she begins to sense an otherworldly presence around the grounds. Are they really ghosts she's seeing? Or is something far more sinister at work?
Having performed in films based on some of the greatest works in literature - including Sense and Sensibility, Howards End, Much Ado About Nothing, and Henry V - Thompson is no stranger to the classics, and she lends a graceful eloquence to this moody, macabre story. Joined by listener favorite Richard Armitage, who performs the prologue, Thompson reinvigorates this psychological thriller of life, death, evil, and the unknown.
Critic reviews
Featured Article: From Page to Scream—35 Spine-Chilling Listens that Inspired Horror Movies
There’s nothing better than turning off all the lights, grabbing a cozy blanket, and settling in with a good horror flick. Many of those standout suspenseful flicks have distinguished literary roots—based on books written by some of the most masterful authors in the genre. Here’s a spotlight on the books behind exceptional horror movies—a few of our favorite spooky or terrifying tales that will no doubt have you sleeping with the lights on.
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Probably the most shocking of the Brontës' novels, this novel had an instant and phenomenal success and is widely considered to be one of the first sustained feminist novels. A mysterious widow, Mrs. Helen Graham, arrives at Wildfell Hall, a nearby old mansion. A source of curiosity for the small community, the reticent Helen and her young son Arthur are slowly drawn into the social circles of the village.
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A good story ruined by the narrator
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By: Anne Brontë
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Charlotte Brontë
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- Narrated by: Corrie James
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- Unabridged
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Charlotte Brontë's life contained all the drama and tragedy of the great Gothic novels it inspired. Like Jane Eyre, she was raised motherless on remote Yorkshire moors and sent away to a brutally strict boarding school at a young age. Charlotte grew up and watched helplessly as, one by one, her five beloved siblings sickened and died; by the end of her short life, she was the only child of the Brontë clan remaining.
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Clear-Eyed Bio of Literature's Most Elusive Figure
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No Name
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Magdalen and Norah Vanstone have known only comfort and affluence for their entire lives. Orphaned suddenly following the unexpected deaths of their parents, the illegitimate sisters find themselves flung into the other extreme of living: their father had neglected to amend his will following their parents' recent marriage, leaving them with nothing, and their bitter, estranged uncle, the legal inheritor of the family fortune, mercilessly refuses them support.
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Good and Evil and Funny
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The Dead Secret
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A masterful blend of Gothic drama and romance, Wilkie Collins' mystery novel is an exploration of illegitimacy and inheritance. Set in Cornwall, the plot foreshadows The Woman in White with its themes of doubtful identity and deception and involves a broad array of characters. The "secret" of the book's title is the true parentage of the book's heroine, Rosamond Treverton, which has been written down and kept in an unused room at Porthgenna Tower. This is where, 20 years later, much of the novel's action is set.
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Only complaint is I wish it were longer
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The Age of Innocence
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Countess Ellen Olenska, separated from her European husband, returns to old New York society. She bears with her an independence and an awareness of life which stirs the educated sensitivity of the charming Newland Archer, engaged to be married to her cousin, May Welland. Though he accepts the society's standards and rules he is acutely aware of their limitations. He knows May will assure him a conventional future but Ellen, scandalously separated from her husband, forces Archer to question his values and beliefs.
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Narrated to Perfection
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Villette
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Hailed as Charlotte Brontë’s “finest novel” by Virginia Woolf, Villette is the timeless semi-autobiographical tale of Lucy Snowe. Left with no family and no money, Lucy goes against her own timid nature and travels to the small city of Villette, France, where she becomes a school teacher in Madame Beck’s school for girls. During her stay, she falls in love—twice—and discovers an independent, inner strength rarely seen in women of her time.
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The Divine Ms. Porter delivers as always
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3 Classic Novels
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- Length: 36 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Welcome to the world of Jane Austen, one of the most beloved authors in the English language. Austen's works are known for their wit, social commentary, and romantic storylines that have captivated readers for generations.
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Classic Novels are the best.
- By Maureen Hart on 09-07-23
By: Jane Austen
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The Man Without Qualities
- By: Robert Musil
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- Length: 60 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1913, the Viennese aristocracy is gathering to celebrate the 17th jubilee of the accession of Emperor Franz Josef, even as the Austro-Hungarian Empire is collapsing and the rest of Vienna is showing signs of rebellion. At the centre of this social labyrinth is Ulrich: a veteran, a seducer and a scientist, yet also a man 'without qualities' and therefore a brilliant and detached observer of his changing world.
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An unmatched intellectual epic
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The Phantom Coach
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- By: Michael Sims
- Narrated by: Matthew Waterson
- Length: 10 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Ghost stories date back centuries, but those written in the Victorian era have a unique atmosphere and dark beauty. Michael Sims, whose previous Victorian collections Dracula’s Guest (vampires) and The Dead Witness (detectives) have been widely praised, has gathered twelve of the best stories about humanity’s oldest supernatural obsession. The Phantom Coach includes tales by a surprising and often legendary cast, including Charles Dickens, Margaret Oliphant, Henry James, Rudyard Kipling, and Arthur Conan Doyle, as well as lost gems by forgotten masters such as Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and W. F. Harvey. Amelia B. Edwards’s chilling story gives the collection its title, while Ambrose Bierce ("The Moonlit Road"), Elizabeth Gaskell ("The Old Nurse’s Story"), and W. W. Jacobs ("The Monkey’s Paw") will turn you white as a sheet. With a skillful introduction to the genre and notes on each story by Sims, The Phantom Coach is a spectacular collection of ghostly Victorian thrills.
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Excellent Narration and Great Selection of Stories
- By Robert on 05-03-15
By: Michael Sims
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This was the most popular novel of Radcliffe's time; Radcliffe's portrayal of her heroine's inner life raised the Gothic romance to a new level. The atmosphere of fear and the gripping plot continue to thrill today. This is the story of the orphaned Emily St Aubert, who finds herself separated from the man she loves and confined within the Castle of Udolpho by her aunt's new husband Montoni. Here she must cope with an unwanted suitor, Montoni's threats, and the wild imaginings and terrors which threaten to overwhelm her.
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What listeners say about The Turn of the Screw
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Gillian
- 03-16-16
Great, but Mightn't be the Best on Audible
I really, really love "The Turn of the Screw," so this is my third version from Audible, and it's hard to judge as is, as opposed to judging in comparison to the other two that I have.
Let's take as is:
Emma Thompson is fabulous, really brings her acting chops to play, and what can you say? The woman is a powerhouse!
But, and this is where you'll have to judge for yourself, she reads as an older woman. I realize that the story is of an older woman looking back, so I understand why this might be appropriate for the book, but the character at the time is a very, very young woman. She is at a loss, wondering, at times she's near out of her mind, so that is why I prefer the Penelope Rawlins version. Because, even though Ms. Thompson delivers a masterful narrative, the dialogue, the interactions sometimes ring false with her more mature tones, with her poise. The character lacks poise at that age, so it's quite odd to hear such control.
Further, one of the joys of the story is that you never quite know what's real--it's up to the reader to decide for him or herself what is doing the haunting: Evil? or the governess as the conduit, the interpreter of what she "sees." If you lean one way or the other, the end is such that, chances are, you'll still wind up leaning that way. It's every man for himself and I know of two no such people who wind up in entire agreement about what exactly is determining the story here. And that's a delight! It makes for wonderful discussions afterward.
But Ms. Thompson's delivery kind of makes it seem as though there actually is only one way of seeing the whole story, which takes a lot of the fun out of it. The dedication of the governess to seeing one end comes off as rather harsh, strident, monstrous even--it doesn't leave much room for questioning. ...bummer...
Still, gotta love it! A governess overly beguiled and bewitched. Ghosts. Perhaps. Young souls hanging in the balance. How could the stakes be higher?
Great listen, beautiful language, compelling plot, mesmerizing characters.
And if you've gotten the kindle version, come back and choose the Audible versions you'd like!
For more reviews, of all genres, check out AudiobookAccomplice
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- John
- 01-15-17
Ambiguity, Precisely Rendered
Thirty-some odd years ago, at the prompting—or insistence—of a girlfriend, I tackled Henry James’ Portrait of a Lady. Three decades later, I still retain the sense of hopelessness as I slogged from one vast paragraph of convoluted inner meditation to another. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe what I remember as convolution was really excruciating precision--an exactness I lacked the patience to appreciate.
Fast forward 30 years. At the prompting of my wife (no, not the same woman), I have come to love Jane Austen—to scoff derisively at those who claim, “nothing happens” in her novels. I’ve never gone back to try Portrait again. But when Audible put The Turn of the Screw up for sale last October I thought it was time to give James another go. After all, I'm much older and maybe even a little wiser now. Or at least more patient.
This time the Baroque sentence structures made perfect sense; that complexity, so inextricably a part of the story being told, illuminates—even demonstrates—the perplexities of that story. Is the governess mad? Is she seeing things? Is she sane and the threat is real? Do the children commune with evil spirits, or has our narrator been at the Mysteries of Udolfo again?
Then there are all the dark things hinted at but never squarely addressed--unspeakable words and acts that are never spoken of. This, too, is another brilliant gambit: ghosts are hard to make believable--the less an author says the more the reader imagines.
Emma Thompson does it all more than justice, navigating every grammatical and dramatic switchback, getting each voice of her intimate cast just right.
Given my limited acquaintance with James, I was stunned that he was able to create so much authentic suspense. I was even more surprised to learn that this was just his most famous ghost story. He liked writing them, which somehow made this solid literary monument of a man more human.
A cursory Internet search made me aware of the critical fisticuffs that this story has been generating ever since its first appearance in 1898. The questions raised above are but the tip of that particular iceberg. For myself, I’d rather not have every question answered. Like Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler in the next century, James knew the tidy ending is not only “unrealistic”, but slackens suspense. The wisest statement I found on the matter comes from Brad Leithauser, a poet I’ve admired for years:
“All such attempts to 'solve' the book, however admiringly tendered, unwittingly work toward its diminution [; its] profoundest pleasure lies in the beautifully fussed over way in which James refuses to come down on either side... the book becomes a modest monument to the bold pursuit of ambiguity.”
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61 people found this helpful
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- Mel
- 04-25-16
An Exorcist, a Ghostbuster, or a Shrink?
Henry James is an author that is better left to the reading, which is something I was concerned about before I purchased the audio version of this Gothic Ghost(?) tale. His sentence construction is...well, different, difficult, wordy and at time paced intentionally to ratchet up the suspense. Emma Thompson is everything you'd expect, and I won't fault her for her interpretation, but it is HER interpretation of a book that is meant by the author to be interpreted by the reader, a style used often by James.
A prior reading doesn't give you very much of an advantage if you are left wondering "what the, who the, huh?" The story is still a conundrum to me after a prior reading (and I'm not dazzled enough to keep digging for the depth and meaning). While I like the concept of reader perception and the unreliable narrator, this story was too loose and wandered down a path too broad to keep the suspense taut and driven ahead with any reliability. It feels helter-skelter and loose. And that's my opinion in spite of how English Lit majors tell me that reflects on my Lit. IQ.
Some "classics" have to be read with a step back into the period from which they were created in order to stand up, and I feel this is one of those books. Listening to Thompson's emotional recollection of the events after the fact, I felt like I was on a runaway horse -- still trying to process some of the vagueness of the story while she raced ahead. It was difficult to envision the story aligned with my own perceptions of what was going on. There are better ghost stories, better Gothic pieces, and better works by James.
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- Carole T.
- 06-02-16
Young Governess; Big Lonely House:
Equals trouble! It happens every time.
"The Turn of the Screw" is an enigmatic classic of horror (or is it madness? Psychology?) It's been put on film and has a number of interpretations available on Audible. Having read and studied the print copy and having seen and heard it in several incarnations, I still happily went for this version.
So, how does Emma Thompson rate among "Turn of the Screw" narrators? I'd normally follow her anywhere, and this is a spectacular performance. The ominous atmosphere and rising suspense are wonderfully conveyed, and it's a fast-moving and satisfying listen. I do believe that one particular slant on the tale's motivations is highly favored here - one that can be more frighteningly ambiguous in reading the book.
Is it necessarily a bad thing to say that anyone who has heard Thompson's narration of "The Turn of the Screw" will find it difficult to see it any other way? I don't think so, but perhaps a newcomer to James' work should read this short book in print form first (preferably alone in a big, old house on a dark, stormy night!)
But Emma Thompson is awfully good - as, by the way, is Richard Armitage in his brief contribution.
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30 people found this helpful
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- Phyllis
- 05-03-16
Wanted to Love it
Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?
I was somewhat disappointed with this selection. I think I may have had too high an expectation. Emma Thompson, Gothic story, Henry James how could it not be fantastic? Something was just not quite right, still not sure what
Would you recommend The Turn of the Screw to your friends? Why or why not?
No, probably not. It was not very compelling. I listen to a lot of audiobooks and one of my standards is how well it holds my attention and I had to actively listen for this one to keep me engaged.
Did the narration match the pace of the story?
I think Emma Thompson's narration was an interpretation and unfortunately it missed the mark. At times it was too breathy and frantic, if trying to convey a sense of urgency the story should have conveyed without this added affectation. Other times it bordered on the pedantic, which is a shame because prior to this I would have thought I would have enjoyed Emma Thompson reading the phone book.
Could you see The Turn of the Screw being made into a movie or a TV series? Who should the stars be?
In the right hands it could be however this story is very much a psychological journey. Are the events of the story really happening or is this the overwrought imagination of an impressionable young woman?
Any additional comments?
I have found the narration of famous actors and actresses to be somewhat uneven. This would be an example of a miss, Kate Winslett and Mathilda would be an out of the park homerun. I really think I prefer the work of narrators who primarily do voice work, they enhance the story, the written word without eclipsing it.
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29 people found this helpful
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- RGetch
- 07-31-16
Boo.
I want my time back. I hate endings that don't really end. The narrator was great; the story was not.
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23 people found this helpful
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- dickenslover
- 03-30-16
Emma Thompson is incredible!
I would not have been so enticed by The Turn of the Screw had it not been for Richard Armitage and Emma Thompson's incredible performance. The short novel is a masterpiece and a wonderful thriller. Would recommend this novel to fans of Victorian ghost stories, and novels like Dracula, Frankenstein and The Island of Doctor Moreau. Overall the experience of this audiobook was a 10/10.
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20 people found this helpful
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- Robert R.
- 03-18-16
Emma Thompson is All Wrong for This
I couldn't listen to this. Nothing about Emma Thompson's narration evokes the action taking place in the story. There's no building temptation or menace, and her affected pronunciation simply got in the way of enjoying the book.
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- Senora Maven
- 03-19-16
Masterful
Emma Thompson, one of my favorite actresses, a Gothic mansion and a ghost story. What's not to love? I really enjoyed the story. This is the first Henry James work I've ever read. I will definitely look for more.
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19 people found this helpful
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- Lihsa
- 03-19-16
Superb performance of a chilling tale
Emma Thompson gives a singular performance. I was left with chills at the tale's end.
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16 people found this helpful