"She was the most beautiful child I had ever seen, and I afterward wondered that my employer had not told me more of her." For the first time since 1898, readers can experience Henry James's eerie The Turn of the Screw the way his original readers did, as a twelve-part weekly serial. The Coffeetown Press edition showcases the novel as it first appeared, complete with provocative illustrations by John La Farge and Eric Pape, in Collier's Weekly. This unique edition, with an analytical introduction by Peter G. Beidler, will of course be valuable to scholars. It will be particularly useful, however, for undergraduate classroom use. It allows readers to experience first-hand the suspense generated by the week-by-week grouping of chapters. It also lets them read the young governess's story of her dangerous encounter with prowling spirits as it first appeared, before James made the 500-odd changes in wording he introduced later. After reading Beidler's detailed appendix analyzing all of James's revisions, readers will see that in many ways this earliest version of The Turn of the Screw was James's best.

Peter F. Collier (1849–1909) and Robert J. Collier (1876–1918) were the men behind publishing giant Peter F. Collier & Son, and their organization ranked among America's most prestigious firms. Collier's Weekly, which appeared in various forms from 1888 through 1957, was at the forefront of new publishing technologies, such as the use of halftone images, and was noted for its fiction and investigative journalism. Collier's publications regularly employed the best illustrators of the day, and the company frequently produced collections of favorite works from their popular periodicals. This volume presents the best color and black-and-white images from two rare portfolios, originally printed in 1908 and 1914. Featured artists include Charles Dana Gibson, whose contract with Collier's made his "Gibson Girl" a fixture in American culture, and Maxfield Parrish, who created many illustrations and covers for the magazine. Additional contributors include Howard Pyle, Jessie Willcox Smith, J. C. Leyendecker, Frederic Remington, and other noteworthy American artists of the early twentieth century.