First Lines: Henry James - The Turn of the Screw

(art: Lynd Ward)

The story had held us, round the fire, sufficiently breathless, but except the obvious remark that it was gruesome, as, on Cristmas Eve in an old house, a strange tale should essentially be, I remember no comment uttered till somebody happened to say that it was the only case he had met in which such a visitation had fallen on a child.