Shirley Jackson: Novels and Stories »

In a prolific and varied oeuvre that ranges over essays, plays, criticism, and several genres of fiction, Joyce Carol Oates has proved herself one of the most influential and important storytellers in the literary world.

"The world of Shirley Jackson is eerie and unforgettable," writes A. M. Homes. "It is a place where things are not what they seem; even on a morning that is sunny and clear there is always the threat of darkness looming, of things taking a turn for the worse." Jackson's characters—mostly unloved daughters in search of a home, a career, a family of their own—chase what appears to be a harmless dream until, without warning, it turns on its heel to seize them by the throat. We are moved by these characters' dreams, for they are the dreams of love and acceptance shared by us all. We are shocked when their dreams become nightmares, and terrified by Jackson's suggestion that there are unseen powers—"demons" both subconscious and supernatural—malevolently conspiring against human happiness.

In this volume Joyce Carol Oates, our leading practitioner of the contemporary Gothic, presents the essential works of Shirley Jackson, the novels and stories that, from the early 1940s through the mid-1960s, wittily remade the genre of psychological horror for an alienated, postwar America. She opens with The Lottery (1949), Jackson's only collection of short fiction, whose disquieting title story—one of the most widely anthologized tales of the twentieth century—has entered American folklore. Also among these early works are "The Daemon Lover," a story Oates praises as "deeper, more mysterious, and more disturbing than 'The Lottery,'" and "Charles," the hilarious sketch that launched Jackson's secondary career as a domestic humorist.

Here too are Jackson's masterly short novels The Haunting of Hill House (1959), the tale of an achingly empathetic young woman chosen by a haunted house to be its new tenant, and We Have Always Lived in the Castle (1962), the unrepentant confessions of Miss Merricat Blackwood, a cunning adolescent who has gone to quite unusual lengths to preserve her ideal of family happiness. Rounding out the volume are 21 other stories and sketches that showcase Jackson in all her many modes, and the essay "Biography of a Story," Jackson's acidly funny account of the public reception of "The Lottery," which provoked more mail from readers of The New Yorker than any contribution before or since.

The New York Times - Terrence Rafferty

Oates's selection is canny. The Haunting of Hill House and We Have Always Lived in the Castle are the best of Jackson's six novels…and the 21 uncollected and unpublished stories here are drawn largely from the posthumous 1968 volume Come Along With Me, wisely put together by Jackson's husband, the critic Stanley Edgar Hyman…Jackson wrote wonderfully at every stage of her career, but it's the later work, from her difficult last years, that sticks most tenaciously in the imagination, stories about desperate homebound fantasies and overfamiliar fears.

THE LOTTERY; OR, THE ADVENTURES OF JAMES HARRIS

I The Intoxicated, 5

The Daemon Lover, 10

Like Mother Used to Make, 26

Trial by Combat, 35

The Villager, 41

My Life with R.H. Macy, 47

II The Witch, 53

The Renegade, 57

After You, My Dear Alphonse, 69

Charles, 73

Afternoon in Linen, 78

Flower Garden, 83

Dorothy and My Grandmother and the Sailors, 108

III Colloquy, 117

Elizabeth, 119

A Fine Old Firm, 153

The Dummy, 157

Seven Types of Ambiguity, 164

Come Dance with Me in Ireland, 171

IV Of Course, 179

Pillar of Salt, 184

Men with Their Big Shoes, 199

The Tooth, 207

Got a Letter from Jimmy, 225

The Lottery, 227

V Epilogue, 239

THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE, 243

WE HAVE ALWAYS LIVED IN THE CASTLE, 421

OTHER STORIES AND SKETCHES

I UNCOLLECTED

Janice, 565

A Cauliflower in Her Hair, 567

Behold the Child Among His Newborn Misses, 572

It Isn't the Money I Mind, 579

The Third Baby's the Easiest, 583

The Summer People, 594

Island, 608

The Night We All Had Grippe, 621

A Visit; or, The Lovely House, 627

This Is the Life; or, Journey with a Lady, 651

One Ordinary Day, with Peanuts, 662

Louisa, Please Come Home, 673

The Little House, 691

The Bus, 700

The Possibility of Evil, 714

II UNPUBLISHED

Portrait, 727

The Mouse, 729

I Know Who I Love, 733

The Beautiful Stranger, 745

The Rock, 753

The Honeymoon of Mrs. Smith, 772

APPENDIX

Biography of a Story, 787

Chronology, 805

Note on the Texts, 814

Notes, 820