Audrey Benjaminsen

Illustrating The Turn of the Screw

How Audrey Benjaminsen's work on Folio's The Turn of the Screw was a lesson in interpreting dreams.

When is the best time to work on the illustrations for a book with a reputation as the ultimate ghost story? Through the night, in the middle of winter, of course! ‘It just seemed like the right time to work on a project that was so dark inside,’ laughs mixed-media artist Audrey Benjaminsen of Folio's edition of Henry James's The Turn of the Screw. ‘Thankfully, the only apparations were in my sketchbook.’ Luckily, Benjaminsen isn’t one to scare easily. She drew inspiration from listening to the audiobook walking through the woods near her home in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and from her own studio. ‘It’s a cosy, fantasy place,’ she says. ‘Anything that makes me feel in touch with nature is good.’

This white, airy space is filled with well-loved things that inspire her, and mementos of loved ones: old books that she has thrifted; a crystal ball; an old birdcage she inherited from her grandmother; and, at her desk by the window, a magnificent chartreuse armchair where she watches squirrels playing outside.

Illustrating The Turn of the Screw

‘Behind my desk is a little collage board of photos and notes. And I think in a very collage-like way: I organise pictures like little theatrical productions. I’m a rearranger of sorts. I just love coming up with different ways to look at things.’

Set in the 19th century, the different ways the book can be read intrigued her. ‘The first time I read it I really identified with the governess and the pressure I put on myself in my 20s,’ she says. ‘Then reading from the children’s perspectives, I was amazed at how different it is. They are orphans processing trauma, and they have the worst babysitter – she’s completely unreliable.’

She drew on this further for her illustrations as she learned about the Victorian fascination with the language of flowers (they were used to send silent messages): look out for daisies around innocent Flora that are slowly decaying; white roses for the governess’s naïve crush on her employer; and marigolds around the deathly Miss Jessel. ‘There is such an overwhelming feeling of secrecy and things unspoken in The Turn of the Screw that I thought this would be an appropriate motif,’ she says.

Illustrating The Turn of The Screw

Benjaminsen also found inspiration in her surroundings. She used the pair of sconces on her studio walls as reference for her cover and used her own responses when drawing the governess, which required some acting. ‘For the last one in the book, I was really trying to find the right expression of terror!’ Benjaminsen came up with a new technique especially for the book, adding a coloured pencil and acrylic wash to her mixed media style: ‘I’d sketch traditionally in my sketchbook and develop those as digital colour studies, then print them on my favourite BFK Rives paper and work on top.’ The results bring texture and soft edges that are beautiful – and ghostly.The Victorian era’s attitude of children ‘being seen and not heard’ inspired her pattern for the cherubic endpapers: ‘The children must have felt trapped, trying to process the death of their parents while they’re stuck in that house with an unreliable adult,’ she says. ‘So the wallpaper reflects these kids put up on pedestals – perfect angels but trapped in the walls.’ This has been her first experience of working across all the elements of a book’s artwork, and one that she describes as very special. ‘I’m always thankful for people who are patient with me learning. But this? It’s really quite cool.’