Is The Haunting of Bly Manor based on a true story?

The Haunting of Hill House was a definite hit. In turn, the series was renewed for a standalone second season. If you’re unfamiliar with the stories behind The Haunting series, you’re not alone. Perhaps they sound eerily familiar, but you’re not sure exactly why. We’re here to explain the inspiration behind the latest installment, The Haunting of Bly Manor.

Netflix describes the upcoming horror series as, “Dead doesn’t mean gone. An au pair plunges into an abyss of chilling secrets in this gothic romance.”

Chilling indeed. Created by Mike Flanagan, The Haunting of Bly Manor centers on the living along with the undead, all who are living together and in one way or another, are very much stuck together.

What is The Haunting of Bly Manor based on?

So is the season based on a true story? Similarly to the first season, Flanagan’s new installment for The Haunting anthology is actually based on something much older. Bly Manor‘s story came from Henry James’ 1898 Gothic horror book The Turn of the Screw. So no, it is not based on a true story.

Notably, other movies based on The Turn of the Screw include The Innocents (1961), The Nightcomers (1971), The Turn of the Screw (1992), and more recently, The Turning (2020).

Of the premise of Bly Manor, Vanity Fair explains:

"It’s based on the the 1898 novella The Turn of the Screw by Henry James, about a young woman who moves to the English countryside to care for two orphaned children, encountering evidence of a grim history and entities she can’t begin to explain. While Hill House was the story of family struggle and trauma, Bly Manor is about broken hearts that never heal and tragic star-crossed romance."

Also noted by Vanity Fair, Bly Manor intertwines more than one supernatural and love-centric story by Henry James, also including The Jolly Corner and The Romance of Certain Old Clothes.

“It certainly provides a new way to tell a love story, and there are three of them that really beat at the heart of this season,” Flanagan explained of the choices of inspiration. “They all have a very dark edge to them. And by the end, it’s really hard to differentiate tragedy with romance.”

Of the show’s truest truths, the talented filmmaker went on to explain, “That sense of romantic longing for someone who meant so much to us—but who’s gone—really is the heart of any ghost story.”

So maybe the ghosts aren’t real after all, but the human parts certainly seem to be!

The Haunting of Bly Manor will be streamable on October 9.