# The Turn of the Screw

The Turn of the Screw by Henry James has 42,795 words.

## At a glance

1898 novella by Henry James.

- **Author:** [Henry James](https://musael.com/books/authors/henry-james.md) (1843–1916)
- **First published:** 1898
- **Original language:** English
- **Genre:** gothic fiction
- **Readers:** adult

## How long it takes to read

- **Words:** 42,795
- **Reading time:** 2 h 51 min (at 250 words a minute)
- **Listening time:** 4 h 36 min (audiobook pace, 155 words a minute)

| Reading speed | Whole book | At 30 minutes a day |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 200 wpm | 3 h 34 min | 8 days |
| 250 wpm | 2 h 51 min | 6 days |
| 300 wpm | 2 h 23 min | 5 days |

## Read or listen

The Turn of the Screw is in the public domain: these editions are free to download, read and share.

- Standard Ebooks: https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/henry-james/the-turn-of-the-screw
- Project Gutenberg: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/209

## Counted from the text

Automated estimates from the selected Project Gutenberg text; it may include a preface or notes.

- Words in the text: 42,836
- Dialogue: 22% of the words are inside quotation marks
- Average sentence: 16.6 words

## Where the numbers come from

The word count comes from the sources below.

- https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/henry-james/the-turn-of-the-screw (word count)
- https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/209 (word count)
- https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q625923
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Turn_of_the_Screw
- https://openlibrary.org/works/OL276386W
- https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/209

Checked on 2026-10-27. Page counts change from edition to edition.

Source: https://musael.com/books/the-turn-of-the-screw