Sunday, April 15, 2007

Happy birthday, Henry James.

Master of ambiguity Henry James was born today in 1843. He died in 1916.

In mysterydom, he is probably best known for the creepy The Turn of the Screw (1898), adapted into the film The Innocents starring Deborah Kerr and featuring a screenplay by Truman Capote and John Mortimer, and also adapted as a Benjamin Britten opera. The debate continues today as to whether the ghosts in the story are a figment of the governess's imagination or whether they really exist. Another James ghost story is The Sense of the Past (published posthumously, 1917), the basis of Berkeley Square, which starred Leslie Howard.

No comments: