View source for Shirley Jackson

{{Short description|American novelist, short-story writer (1916–1965)}}
{{About|the American writer|the physicist and former president of [[Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute]]|Shirley Ann Jackson}}
{{Use American English|date=December 2022}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=December 2022}}
{{Infobox writer
| name = Shirley Jackson
| image = ShirleyJack.jpg
| caption = Jackson in 1940<ref>{{cite news |last1=Miller |first1=Laura |title=The Alternating Identities of Shirley Jackson |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/11/books/review/laurence-jackson-hyman-the-letters-of-shirley-jackson.html |access-date=August 3, 2022 |work=The New York Times |date=July 11, 2021}}</ref>
| birth_name = Shirley Hardie Jackson
| birth_date = {{Birth date|1916|12|14}}
| birth_place = [[San Francisco|San Francisco, California]], U.S.
| death_date = {{Death date and age|1965|8|8|1916|12|14}}
| death_place = [[North Bennington, Vermont]], U.S.
| education = [[University of Rochester]]<br>[[Syracuse University]] ([[Bachelor of Arts|BA]])
| occupation = Writer
| genre = {{hlist|[[Horror fiction|Horror]]|[[Mystery fiction|mystery]]|[[Gothic fiction|gothic]]}}
| spouse = {{marriage|[[Stanley Edgar Hyman]]|1940}}
| children = 4
| signature = Shirley Jackson signature.svg
| notable_works    = "[[The Lottery]]"<br>''[[Life Among the Savages]]''<br>''[[The Haunting of Hill House]]''<br>''[[We Have Always Lived in the Castle]]''
| years_active     = 1943–1965
}}
{{external media
| topic  = Photographs
| image1 = [https://www.rochester.edu/newscenter/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/fea-shirley-jackson-ID.jpg Jackson, 1934]<ref name="rochester-1938"/><!-- class of 1938 -->
| image2 = [https://longreadsblog.files.wordpress.com/2016/09/oates_1-1008092.jpg Jackson], by June Mirken Mintz<ref>{{cite web |last1=Devers |first1=A. N. |title=The Great American Housewife Writer: A Shirley Jackson Primer |url=https://longreads.com/2016/12/14/the-great-american-housewife-writer-a-shirley-jackson-primer/ |website=Longreads |access-date=August 3, 2022 |language=en |date=December 14, 2016}}</ref>
| image3 =[https://static01.nyt.com/images/2016/10/02/books/review/02McGrath/02McGrath-jumbo.jpg Jackson with first child, circa 1944]<ref>{{cite news |last1=McGrath |first1=Charles |title=The Case for Shirley Jackson |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/02/books/review/shirley-jackson-ruth-franklin.html |access-date=August 3, 2022 |work=The New York Times |date=September 30, 2016}}</ref>
| image4 = [https://api.time.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/shirley-jackson.jpg Jackson, 16 April 1951]<ref>{{cite magazine |title=This Is What 1950s and '60s Critics Said About Shirley Jackson's Work |url=https://time.com/4595609/shirley-jackson-100-reviews/ |access-date=August 3, 2022 |magazine= [[Time (magazine)|Time]] |date=December 14, 2016 |language=en}}</ref>
| image5 = [https://compote.slate.com/images/cc827350-fd41-4b45-9527-a41f3924315e.jpg Jackson , late 1950s]<ref>{{cite news |last1=Miller |first1=Laura |title=The Eerie and Cheery Life of Shirley Jackson |url=https://slate.com/culture/2016/10/ruth-franklins-biography-of-shirley-jackson-reviewed.html |access-date=August 3, 2022 |work=[[Slate (magazine)|Slate]] |date=October 5, 2016 |language=en}}</ref>
| image6 = [https://pyxis.nymag.com/v1/imgs/3af/c8a/ec2aeb95088da8ca211d4fc33b895456ba-27-shirley-jackson-cover-story-secondary.jpg Jackson], Hyman family<ref name="thecut-jackson-rather"/>
| image7 = [https://pyxis.nymag.com/v1/imgs/e1e/64f/30d0082b1599e47233dc87e28fbace7f4c-27-shirley-jackson-cover-story-lede.rhorizontal.jpg Jackson]<ref name="thecut-jackson-rather">{{cite news |title=The Novelist Disguised As a Housewife |url=https://www.thecut.com/2016/09/shirley-jackson-rather-haunted-life-c-v-r.html |access-date=August 3, 2022 |work=The Cut |date=September 27, 2016 |language=en}}</ref> by [[Erich Hartmann (photographer)|Erich Hartmann]]
}}
'''Shirley Hardie Jackson''' (December 14, 1916 – August 8, 1965) was an American writer known primarily for her works of [[horror fiction|horror]] and [[mystery fiction|mystery]]. Her writing career spanned over two decades, during which she composed six novels, two memoirs, and more than 200 [[short story|short stories]].

Born in [[San Francisco]], California, Jackson attended [[Syracuse University]] in [[New York (state)|New York]], where she became involved with the university's literary magazine and met her future husband [[Stanley Edgar Hyman]].<ref>{{Cite magazine |last=Heller |first=Zoë |date=October 10, 2016 |orig-date=October 10, 2016 |title=The Haunted Mind of Shirley Jackson |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/10/17/the-haunted-mind-of-shirley-jackson |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230224122341/https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/10/17/the-haunted-mind-of-shirley-jackson |archive-date=February 24, 2023 |access-date=August 2, 2024 |magazine=The New Yorker |language=en-US |issn=0028-792X}}</ref> After they graduated, the couple moved to New York City and began contributing to ''[[The New Yorker]],'' with Jackson as a fiction writer and Hyman as a contributor to "Talk of the Town". The couple settled in [[North Bennington, Vermont]], in 1945, after the birth of their first child, when Hyman joined the faculty of [[Bennington College]].<ref name=":0">{{Cite magazine|last=Zoë|first=Heller|date=October 17, 2016|title=The Haunted Mind of Shirley Jackson|url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/10/17/the-haunted-mind-of-shirley-jackson|magazine=[[The New Yorker]]}}</ref>

After publishing her [[debut novel]], ''[[The Road Through the Wall]]'' (1948), a semi-autobiographical account of her childhood in California, Jackson gained significant public attention for her short story "[[The Lottery]]", which presents the sinister underside of a bucolic American village. She continued to publish numerous short stories in literary journals and magazines throughout the 1950s, some of which were assembled and reissued in her 1953 memoir ''[[Life Among the Savages]]''. In 1959, she published ''[[The Haunting of Hill House]]'', a supernatural horror novel widely considered to be one of the best ghost stories ever written.{{efn|''The Haunting of Hill House'' has been ranked as the [https://horrornovelreviews.com/2013/04/09/the-10-scariest-novels-of-all-time/  8th "Scariest Novel of All Time"] by horrornovelreviews.com, and in ''[[Paste (magazine)|Paste]]'' magazine's unsorted [https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2015/04/required-reading-40-of-the-best-horror-novels.html "30 Best Horror Books of All Time"], Tyler R. Kane said, "If you go by the consensus of the literary community, ''Haunting of Hill House'' isn't only a book that revolutionized the modern ghost story—it's also the best."}} Jackson's final work, the 1962 novel ''[[We Have Always Lived in the Castle]]'', is a [[Gothic fiction|Gothic]] mystery that has been described as her masterpiece.<ref name="Heller 2016">{{cite magazine |last=Heller |first=Zoë |date=October 17, 2016 |title=The Haunted Mind of Shirley Jackson |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/10/17/the-haunted-mind-of-shirley-jackson |magazine=The New Yorker |access-date=May 25, 2020}}</ref>

By the 1960s, Jackson's health began to deteriorate significantly, ultimately leading to her death due to a heart condition in 1965 at the age of 48.

==Ancestry==
Jackson was of English ancestry,{{sfn|Franklin|2016|pp=22–23}} and her mother Geraldine traced her family heritage to the Revolutionary War hero General [[Nathanael Greene]].{{sfn|Oppenheimer|1988|p=11}} Jackson's maternal great-grandfather, John Stephenson, had been a prominent lawyer in San Francisco—later a Superior Court Judge in [[Alaska]]{{sfn|Franklin|2016|pp=13–14}}—while her great-great grandfather was [[Samuel Charles Bugbee]], an architect whose works included the homes of [[Leland Stanford]] and [[Charles Crocker]] and the [[Mendocino Presbyterian Church]].<ref>{{cite web |last1=Bugbee |first1=Arthur S. |title=Information on Samuel Charles Bugbee and the Golden Gate Park Conservatory |url=https://sfpl.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S93C1590153 |website=[[BiblioCommons]] |publisher=[[San Francisco Public Library]] |access-date=August 4, 2022 |date=1957}}</ref><ref name=lat>{{cite web|url=https://www.latimes.com/books/jacketcopy/la-ca-jc-shirley-jackson-bio-20160919-snap-story.html|website=[[Los Angeles Times]]|title=Shirley Jackson and her bewitching biography, 'A Rather Haunted Life'|author=Bradfield, Scott|date=September 30, 2016|access-date=February 6, 2018}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://pcad.lib.washington.edu/person/6908/|title=Samuel Charles Bugbee|website=[[Pacific Coast Architecture Database]]|access-date=October 16, 2018}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://dictionaryofarchitectsincanada.org/node/1238|title=Bugbee, Samuel Charles – Biographical Dictionary of Architects in Canada|website=dictionaryofarchitectsincanada.org|access-date=October 16, 2018}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/c8z60r0c/entire_text/|title=Guide to the Samuel Charles Bugbee Papers|website=[[Online Archive of California]]|access-date=October 16, 2018}}</ref> Jackson said:

{{blockquote|My grandfather was an architect, and his father, and ''his'' father. One of them built houses only for millionaires in California and that's where the family wealth came from, and one of them was certain that houses could be made to stand on the [[Sunset District, San Francisco|sand dunes of San Francisco]], and that's where the family wealth went.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ueOaCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA1666|title=Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life|first=Ruth|last=Franklin|date= 2016|publisher=Liveright Publishing|access-date=October 16, 2018|via=[[Google Books]]|isbn=978-1631492129|ref=none}}</ref>}}

Jackson's maternal grandmother, nicknamed "Mimi", was a [[Christian Science]] practitioner who continued to practice spiritual healing on members of the family after her retirement. Jackson was known to critically assess such attempts, recounting a time when Mimi claimed to have broken her leg and healed it through prayer overnight, though she had really only lightly sprained her ankle. When Mimi died, Jackson told her daughter that she "died of Christian Science."{{sfn|Franklin|2016<!-- |p=? -->}} While she believed that religion could easily become a vehicle for harm, the religious influences from her childhood are clear in Jackson's writing, which includes themes of [[mysticism]], mental power, and [[witchcraft]].{{sfn|Franklin|2016<!-- |p=? -->}}

==Early life==
Jackson was born December 14, 1916,<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.californiabirthindex.org/birth/shirley_h_jackson_born_1916_351511|title=Shirley H Jackson, Born 12/14/1916 in California|website=CaliforniaBirthIndex.org|access-date=October 16, 2018}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://shirleyjackson.org/|title=Shirley Jackson's Bio|website=shirleyjackson.org|access-date=October 12, 2018}}</ref> in [[San Francisco]], California, to Leslie Jackson and his wife Geraldine (née Bugby).{{sfn|Franklin|2016|p=12|ref=none}}{{efn|Jackson would later claim to have been born in 1919 to appear younger than her husband, though she was in fact born in 1916. Most biographical material published in Jackson's lifetime reports the 1919 date.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YvyM5NgXopAC&q=1916+oppenheimer+%22shirley+jackson%22&pg=PA262 |last=Joshi |first=S. T. |author-link=S. T. Joshi |title=The Modern Weird Tale |publisher=[[McFarland & Company]] |year=2001 |isbn=978-0-786-40986-0}}</ref>}}

Jackson was raised in [[Burlingame, California]], an affluent [[suburb]] of San Francisco, where her family resided in a two-story home located at 1609 Forest View Road.{{sfn|Franklin|2016|p=28}} Her relationship with her mother was strained, as her parents had married young and Geraldine had been disappointed when she immediately became pregnant with Shirley, as she had been looking forward to "spending time with her dashing husband".{{sfn|Oppenheimer|1988|p=13}} Jackson was often unable to fit in with other children and spent much of her time writing, much to her mother's distress. Geraldine made no attempt to hide her favoritism towards her son, Barry, who explained his mother's antagonism towards Shirley by saying, "[Geraldine] was just a deeply conventional woman who was horrified by the idea that her daughter was not going to be deeply conventional."{{sfn|Franklin|2016<!-- |p=? -->}} When Shirley was a teenager, her weight fluctuated, resulting in a lack of confidence that she would struggle with throughout her life.<ref name=lat/>{{sfn|Franklin|2016|p=14}}

She attended [[Burlingame High School (California)|Burlingame High School]], where she played [[violin]] in the school orchestra.{{sfn|Franklin|2016|p=24}} During her senior year of high school, the Jackson family relocated to [[Rochester, New York]],{{sfn|Franklin|2016|p=24}} after which she attended [[Brighton High School (Rochester, New York)|Brighton High School]], receiving her diploma in 1934.<ref name="D&C Let Me Tell You"/> She then attended the nearby [[University of Rochester]], where her parents felt they could maintain supervision over her studies.{{sfn|Oppenheimer|1988|p=37}} Jackson was unhappy in her classes there,<ref>{{cite news |last1=Earle |first1=Melanie |title=From the Archives: Shirley Jackson's mysterious time at UR |url=https://www.campustimes.org/2021/02/14/from-the-archives-shirley-jacksons-mysterious-time-at-ur/ |access-date=April 5, 2022 |work=Rochester [[Campus Times]] |date=February 14, 2021}}</ref><ref name="rochester-1938">{{cite news |last1=Ver Steeg |first1=Jim |title=Year's top books share roots in University archives |url=https://www.rochester.edu/newscenter/years-top-books-share-roots-in-university-archives-206242/ |access-date=April 5, 2022 |work= Newscenter |publisher=[[University of Rochester]]  |quote=Best known for her short story “The Lottery,” Shirley Jackson studied for a time at Rochester but left in 1936 during her sophomore year. This student ID card puts her in the class of 1938. |date=December 20, 2016}}</ref> and took a year-long hiatus from her studies before transferring to [[Syracuse University]], where she flourished both creatively and socially.{{sfn|Oppenheimer|1988|p=56}} Here she received her bachelor's degree in journalism.{{sfn|Oppenheimer|1988|p=61}} While a student at Syracuse, Jackson became involved with the campus [[literary magazine]], through which she met her future husband, [[Stanley Edgar Hyman]], who later became a noted [[literary critic]].{{sfn|Franklin|2016|p=65}} While attending Syracuse, the university's literary magazine published Jackson's first story, "Janice", about a teenager's suicide attempt.{{sfn|Franklin|2016|p=58}}

==Marriage==
After graduating, Jackson and Hyman married in 1940, and had brief sojourns in [[New York City]] and [[Westport, Connecticut]], ultimately settling in [[North Bennington, Vermont]],<ref>{{cite web|url=https://lithub.com/in-search-of-shirley-jacksons-house/|title=In Search of Shirley Jackson's House|date=September 28, 2016|website=[[Literary Hub]]|access-date=October 16, 2018}}</ref> where Hyman had been hired as an instructor at [[Bennington College]].{{sfn|Franklin|2016|p=159}} Jackson began writing material as Hyman established himself as a critic. Jackson and Hyman were known for being colorful, generous hosts who surrounded themselves with literary talents, including [[Ralph Ellison]].{{sfn|Franklin|2016|p=194}} They were both enthusiastic readers whose personal library was estimated at 25,000 books.{{sfn|Franklin|2016|p=67}} They had four children, Laurence (Laurie), Joanne (Jannie), Sarah (Sally), and Barry, who later achieved their own brand of literary fame as fictionalized versions of themselves in their mother's short stories. In an era when women were not encouraged to work outside the home, Jackson became the chief breadwinner while also raising the couple's children.<ref name=":0" /> "She did work hard," her son Laurence said. "She was always writing, or thinking about writing, and she did all the shopping and cooking, too. The meals were always on time. But she also loved to laugh and tell jokes. She was very buoyant that way." For examples of her wit, he refers readers to her many humorous cartoons, one of which depicts a husband cautioning a wife not to carry heavy things during pregnancy, but not offering to help.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Cooke|first=Rachel|date=December 12, 2016|title=Laurence Jackson Hyman on his mother Shirley: 'Her work is so relevant now ...'|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/dec/12/laurence-jackson-hyman-mother-shirley-jackson-dark-tales|journal=The Guardian}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last1=Sacks |first1=Sam |title='The Letters of Shirley Jackson' Review: The Artist as Mad Housewife |url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-letters-of-shirley-jackson-review-the-artist-as-mad-housewife-11625844577 |access-date=April 4, 2022 |work=[[Wall Street Journal]] |date=July 9, 2021}}</ref>

According to Jackson's biographers, her marriage was plagued by Hyman's infidelities, notably with his students, and she reluctantly agreed to his proposition of maintaining an [[open relationship]].{{sfn|Franklin|2016|p=155}} Hyman also controlled their finances (meting out portions of her earnings to her as he saw fit), despite the fact that after the success of "The Lottery" and later work she earned far more than he did.{{sfn|Franklin|2016|pp=352, 357}}

==Writing career==

==="The Lottery" and early publications===
In 1948, Jackson published her debut novel, ''[[The Road Through the Wall]]'', which tells a semi-autobiographical account of her childhood growing up in [[Burlingame, California]], in the 1920s. Jackson's most famous story, "[[The Lottery]]", first published in ''The New Yorker'' on June&nbsp;26, 1948, established her reputation as a master of the horror tale.<ref name="ContempAuthors">"Shirley Jackson". ''[[Contemporary Authors]]''. Detroit: Gale, 2016. Retrieved via ''[[Gale Biography In Context]]'' database, October 24, 2016. "''The Haunting of Hill House'' has become one of the most respected haunted house stories."</ref> The story prompted over 300 letters from readers,{{sfn|Franklin|2016|p=231}} many of them outraged at its conjuring of a dark aspect of human nature,<ref name="ContempAuthors"/> characterized by, as Jackson put it, "bewilderment, speculation, and old-fashioned abuse".{{sfn|Franklin|2016|p=221}} In the July 22, 1948, issue of the ''[[San Francisco Chronicle]]'', Jackson offered the following in response to persistent queries from her readers about her intentions: "Explaining just what I had hoped the story to say is very difficult. I suppose I hoped, by setting a particularly brutal ancient rite in the present and in my own village, to shock the story's readers with a graphic dramatization of the pointless violence and general inhumanity in their own lives."{{sfn|Bloom|2009|pages=33–34}}

The critical reaction to the story was unequivocally positive; the story quickly became a standard in anthologies and was adapted for television in 1952.<ref name="DictAmerBio">"Shirley Hardie Jackson". ''Dictionary of American Biography''. New York: [[Charles Scribner's Sons]], 1981. Retrieved via ''[[Gale Biography In Context]]'' database, October 24, 2016.</ref> In 1949, "The Lottery" was published in a short story collection of Jackson's titled ''The Lottery and Other Stories''.{{sfn|Franklin|2016|pages=220, 257–259}}

Jackson's second novel, ''[[Hangsaman]]'' (1951), contained elements similar to the mysterious real-life December&nbsp;1, 1946, disappearance of an 18-year-old Bennington College sophomore [[Paula Jean Welden]]. This event, which remains unsolved to this day, took place in the wooded wilderness of [[Glastenbury Mountain]] near [[Bennington, Vermont|Bennington]] in southern Vermont, where Jackson and her family were living at the time. The fictional college depicted in ''Hangsaman'' is based in part on Jackson's experiences at Bennington College, as indicated by Jackson's papers in the Library of Congress.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/h?faid/faid:@field(DOCID+ms996001) |title=Shirley Jackson Papers |publisher=[[Library of Congress]] |access-date=September 28, 2013}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last=Powers |first=Tim |title=Remember Paula Welden? 30 Years Ago |newspaper=Bennington Banner |date=December 1, 1976}}</ref> The event also served as inspiration for her short story "The Missing Girl" (first published in ''The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction'' in 1957, and posthumously in ''Just an Ordinary Day'' [1996]).

The following year, she published ''[[Life Among the Savages]]'', a semi-autobiographical collection of short stories based on her own life with her four children,{{sfn|Franklin|2016|pages=156–158}} many of which had been published prior in popular magazines such as ''[[Good Housekeeping]]'', ''[[Woman's Day]]'' and ''[[Collier's]]''.<ref name="DictAmerBio"/> Semi-fictionalized versions of her marriage and the experience of bringing up four children, these works are "true-to-life funny-housewife stories" of the type later popularized by such writers as [[Jean Kerr]] and [[Erma Bombeck]] during the 1950s and 1960s.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/10/books/review/shirley-jacksons-life-among-the-savages-and-raising-demons-reissued.html?_r=0 |title=Shirley Jackson's 'Life Among the Savages' and 'Raising Demons' Reissued |author=Franklin, Ruth |date=May 8, 2015 |website=The New York Times |access-date=February 13, 2017}}</ref>

Reluctant to discuss her work with the public, Jackson wrote in Stanley J. Kunitz and Howard Haycraft's ''Twentieth Century Authors'' (1955):{{sfn|Kunitz|1973|p=483}}
{{blockquote|I very much dislike writing about myself or my work, and when pressed for autobiographical material can only give a bare chronological outline which contains, naturally, no pertinent facts. I was born in San Francisco in 1919 [sic] and spent most of my early life in California. I was married in 1940 to Stanley Edgar Hyman, critic and numismatist, and we live in Vermont, in a quiet rural community with fine scenery and comfortably far away from city life. Our major exports are books and children, both of which we produce in abundance. The children are Laurence, Joanne, Sarah, and Barry: my books include three novels, ''The Road Through the Wall'', ''Hangsaman'', ''[[The Bird's Nest (novel)|The Bird's Nest]]'' and a collection of short stories, ''The Lottery''. ''Life Among the Savages'' is a disrespectful memoir of my children.}}"The persona that Jackson presented to the world was powerful, witty, even imposing," wrote [[Zoë Heller]] in ''[[The New Yorker]].'' "She could be sharp and aggressive with fey Bennington girls and salesclerks and people who interrupted her writing. Her letters are filled with tartly funny observations. Describing the bewildered response of ''The New Yorker'' readers to 'The Lottery,' she notes, 'The number of people who expected Mrs. Hutchinson to win a [[Bendix Corporation|Bendix]] washing machine at the end would amaze you.{{'-}}"<ref name=":0" />

===''The Haunting of Hill House'' and other works===
In 1954, Jackson published ''[[The Bird's Nest (novel)|The Bird's Nest]]'' (1954), which detailed a woman with multiple personalities and her relationship with her psychiatrist.{{sfn|Franklin|2016|p=333}} One of Jackson's publishers, [[Roger Williams Straus Jr.|Roger Straus]], deemed ''The Bird's Nest'' "a perfect novel", but the publishing house marketed it as a psychological horror story, which displeased her.{{sfn|Franklin|2016|p=336}} Her following novel, ''[[The Sundial]]'', was published four years later and concerned a family of wealthy eccentrics who believe they have been chosen to survive the end of the world.{{sfn|Franklin|2016|p=351}} She later published two [[memoir]]s, ''[[Life Among the Savages]]'' and ''[[Raising Demons]]''.

Jackson's fifth novel, ''[[The Haunting of Hill House]]'' (1959), follows a group of individuals participating in a paranormal study at a reportedly haunted mansion.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://writershouses.com/guest/shirley-jackson-doesn%E2%80%99t-have-a-house|title=Shirley Jackson Doesn't Have a House|author=Susan Scarf Merrell|date=August 10, 2010|website=writershouses.com|access-date=October 16, 2018|archive-date=October 17, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181017001728/http://writershouses.com/guest/shirley-jackson-doesn%E2%80%99t-have-a-house|url-status=dead}}</ref> The novel, which interpolated supernatural phenomena with [[psychology]],{{sfn|Franklin|2016|p=312}} went on to become a critically esteemed example of the haunted house story,<ref name="ContempAuthors"/><ref>{{cite web|website=The Wall Street Journal|url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748703298004574455551864001062 |title=Chilling Fiction|date=October 29, 2009|access-date=December 30, 2017}} {{subscription required}}</ref> described by [[Joanne Harris]] as "not only the best haunted-house story ever written, but also a quiet subversion of the ingénue trope in horror fiction, with a nod to [[Jean-Paul Sartre|Sartre]]'s ''[[No Exit|Huis Clos]]'' with its toxic menage a trois"<ref>{{Cite news |last=Harris |first=Joanne |date=2016-12-14 |title=Shirley Jackson centenary: a quiet, hidden rage |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/dec/14/shirley-jackson-centenary-quiet-hidden-rage-joanne-harris |access-date=2024-09-11 |work=The Guardian |language=en-GB |issn=0261-3077}}</ref> and by [[Stephen King]] as one of the most important horror novels of the twentieth century.<ref>{{cite web|author=Missing, Sophie|date=February 6, 2010|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/feb/07/haunting-hill-house-shirley-jackson|title=Review of The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson|website=The Guardian|access-date=December 23, 2017}}</ref>

Also in 1959, Jackson published the one-act children's musical ''The Bad Children'', based on ''[[Hansel and Gretel]]''.<ref>{{cite book|title=The Bad Children: A Musical in One Act for Bad Children|author=Jackson, Shirley|year=1959|isbn= 978-1-583-42211-3|publisher=Dramatic Publishing}}</ref>

===Declining health and death===
By the time ''The Haunting of Hill House'' had been published, Jackson suffered numerous health problems. She was a heavy [[tobacco smoking|smoker]], resulting in chronic [[asthma]].  She also suffered from joint pain, exhaustion, and dizziness leading to fainting spells, which were attributed to a heart problem.{{sfn|Franklin|2016|pages=338–340}} Near the end of her life, Jackson also saw a psychiatrist for severe anxiety that had kept her housebound for extended periods of time, a problem worsened by a diagnosis of [[colitis]], which made it physically difficult to travel even short distances from her home.{{sfn|Downey|Jones|2005|p=217}} To ease her anxiety and [[agoraphobia]], the doctor prescribed [[barbiturates]], which at that time were considered a safe, harmless drug.{{sfn|Franklin|2016|pp=275–280}} For many years, she also had periodic prescriptions for [[amphetamines]] for weight loss, which may have inadvertently aggravated her anxiety, leading to a cycle of prescription drug abuse using the two medications to counteract each other's effects.{{sfn|Franklin|2016|p=4}} Any of these factors, or a combination of all of them, may have contributed to her declining health.{{sfn|Franklin|2016|pp=275–280}} Jackson confided to friends that she felt patronized in her role as a "faculty wife" and ostracized by the townspeople of North Bennington. Her dislike of this situation led to her increasing abuse of alcohol in addition to tranquilizers and amphetamines.<ref>{{cite magazine | url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/10/17/the-haunted-mind-of-shirley-jackson | title=The Haunted Mind of Shirley Jackson | first=Zoë | last=Heller | date=October 17, 2016 | magazine=[[The New Yorker]] | access-date=February 20, 2017}}</ref>

Despite her failing health, Jackson continued to write and publish several works in the 1960s, including her final novel, ''[[We Have Always Lived in the Castle]]'' (1962), a Gothic mystery novel.<ref name=hattenhauer/> It was named by [[Time (magazine)|''Time'' magazine]] as one of the "Ten Best Novels" of 1962.<ref name=hattenhauer>{{cite book|isbn=978-0-7914-5607-1|title=Shirley Jackson's American Gothic|first=Darryl|last=Hattenhauer|publisher=[[SUNY Press]]|page=195|date= 2003}}</ref> The following year, she published ''Nine Magic Wishes'', an illustrated children's novel about a child who encounters a magician who grants him numerous enchanting wishes.{{sfn|Franklin|2016|p=458}} The psychological aspects of her illness responded well to therapy, and by 1964 she began to resume normal activities, including a round of speaking engagements at writers' conferences, as well as planning a new novel titled ''Come Along with Me,'' which was to be a major departure from the style and subject matter of her previous works.

In 1965, Jackson died in her sleep at her home in North Bennington, at the age of 48.{{sfn|Franklin|2016|p=339}} Her death was attributed to a [[coronary occlusion]] due to arteriosclerosis{{sfn|Franklin|2016|p=494}} or [[cardiac arrest]].{{sfn|Oppenheimer|1988|p=269}} She was cremated, as was her wish.{{sfn|Franklin|2016|p=495}}

===Posthumous publications===
In 1968, Jackson's husband released a posthumous volume of her work, ''Come Along with Me'', containing her unfinished last novel, as well as 14 previously uncollected short stories (among them "Louisa, Please Come Home") and three lectures she gave at colleges or writers' conferences in her last years.<ref>Hyman, Stanley Edgar (2014). "Preface" from the first edition, 1968. In: Shirley Jackson, ''Come Along with Me: Classic Short Stories and an Unfinished Novel''. New York: Penguin. {{ISBN|978-1-101-61605-5}}.</ref>

In 1996, a crate of unpublished stories was found in a barn behind Jackson's house. A selection of those stories, along with previously uncollected stories from various magazines, were published in the 1996 volume ''Just an Ordinary Day''.<ref>{{Cite news |date=2015-08-08 |title=Shirley Jackson: Extraordinary tale of one of America's eeriest writers |url=https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/life/books/shirley-jackson-extraordinary-tale-of-one-of-americas-eeriest-writers/31435610.html |access-date=2025-01-01 |work=BelfastTelegraph.co.uk |language=en-GB |issn=0307-1235}}</ref> The title was taken from one of her stories for ''[[The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction]]'', "One Ordinary Day, with Peanuts".<ref>{{Cite web |last=Bradfield |first=Scott |date=2021-07-14 |title=Shirley Jackson's letters could make an errand more exciting than your entire life |url=https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/books/story/2021-07-14/shirley-jacksons-letters-could-make-an-errand-more-exciting-than-your-entire-life |access-date=2025-01-01 |website=Los Angeles Times |language=en-US}}</ref>

Jackson's papers are available in the [[Library of Congress]]. In its August 5, 2013, issue ''The New Yorker'' published "Paranoia", which the magazine said was discovered at the library.<ref>{{cite magazine |author= Cressida Leyshon|url=https://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2013/07/this-week-in-fiction-shirley-jackson-paranoia.html#slide_ss_0=1 |title=This Week in Fiction: Shirley Jackson |magazine=[[The New Yorker]] |date=July 26, 2013 |access-date=August 5, 2013}}</ref> ''Let Me Tell You'', a collection of stories and essays by Jackson (mostly unpublished) was released in 2015.<ref name="D&C Let Me Tell You">{{cite news |last1=Spevak |first1=Jeff |title=New Shirley Jackson tales published |url=https://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/lifestyle/people/2015/08/01/shirley-jackson-book/30941765/ |access-date=April 5, 2022 |work=[[Democrat and Chronicle]] |date=August 1, 2015}}</ref><ref name=eb>{{cite web|url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Shirley-Jackson|access-date=February 5, 2018|title=Shirley Jackson|website=[[Encyclopædia Britannica]]}}</ref>

In December 2020, the short story "Adventure on a Bad Night" was published for the first time, appearing in ''[[The Strand Magazine]]''.<ref>{{cite web| last= Flood| first= Alison| title= Unseen Shirley Jackson story to be published| url= https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/dec/17/unseen-shirley-jackson-story-to-be-published-adventure-on-a-bad-night | date= December 17, 2020| work= [[The Guardian]]| access-date= December 17, 2020 }}</ref>

==Adaptations==
*"[[The Lottery]]" has been adapted for radio, television, theater, and film (three times),{{citation needed|date=August 2022}} notably, in 1969, as a short film that director [[Larry Yust]] made for [[Encyclopædia Britannica Films]].<ref name=eb/> The Academic Film Archive cited Yust's short "as one of the two bestselling educational films ever".{{citation needed|date=August 2022}}
*[[Eleanor Parker]] starred in [[Hugo Haas]]' ''[[Lizzie (1957 film)|Lizzie]]'' (1957), based on ''The Bird's Nest'', with a cast that included [[Richard Boone]], [[Joan Blondell]], and [[Marion Ross]].
*In 1963, screenwriter [[Nelson Gidding]] adapted ''[[The Haunting of Hill House]]'' into the screenplay for the film ''[[The Haunting (1963 film)|The Haunting]]'', with [[Julie Harris (American actress)|Julie Harris]] and [[Claire Bloom]], directed by [[Robert Wise]].
*Jackson's 1962 novel ''[[We Have Always Lived in the Castle]]'' was adapted for the stage by [[Hugh Wheeler]] in the mid-1960s. Directed by [[Garson Kanin]], starring [[Shirley Knight]], it opened on Broadway on October 19, 1966. The [[David Merrick]] production closed after only nine performances at the [[Ethel Barrymore Theatre]], but Wheeler's play continues to be staged by regional theater companies.{{citation needed|date=August 2014}}
*[[Joanne Woodward]] directed ''Come Along with Me'' (1982), adapted from Jackson's unfinished novel as an episode of ''[[American Playhouse]]'', with a cast headed by [[Estelle Parsons]] and [[Sylvia Sidney]].<ref name="jamesamiller">{{cite news |last=Kates |first=Joan Giangrasse |url= https://www.chicagotribune.com/2012/01/02/james-a-miller-1936-2011-independent-gaffer-lit-movies-for-major-players/ |title=James A. Miller 1936–2011: Independent gaffer lit movies for major players |work=Chicago Tribune |date=January 2, 2012 |access-date=February 6, 2018}}</ref>
*In 1999, ''[[The Haunting of Hill House]]'' was adapted a second time, into the critically panned [[The Haunting (1999 film)|''The Haunting'']], directed by [[Jan de Bont]] and starring [[Lili Taylor]], [[Liam Neeson]], and [[Catherine Zeta-Jones]].
*In 2010, ''[[We Have Always Lived in the Castle]]'' was adapted into a musical drama by [[Adam Bock]] and Todd Almond and premiered at [[Yale Repertory Theatre]] on September 17, 2010; the production was directed by Anne Kauffman.{{citation needed|date=August 2014}}
* A [[We Have Always Lived in the Castle (film)|film adaptation]] of ''[[We Have Always Lived in the Castle]]'' began production in 2016, with a release date originally set for summer of 2017, but premiered in September 2018. It stars [[Alexandra Daddario]], [[Crispin Glover]], [[Sebastian Stan]], and [[Taissa Farmiga]]. The executive producer is [[Michael Douglas]], with Jackson's son and literary executor, Laurence Jackson Hyman, as co-executive producer. Hyman was disappointed by earlier screen versions of his mother's work and, as such, decided to take a more active role.<ref>{{cite web|website=ThePress Democrat|url=https://www.pressdemocrat.com/lifestyle/7607677-181/legacy-of-author-shirley-jackson?artslide=0|title=Legacy of author Shirley Jackson lives on in Sonoma County|author=Taylor, Dan|date=November 24, 2017|access-date=December 28, 2017}}</ref>
*In 2018, ''[[Netflix]]'' produced ''[[The Haunting of Hill House (TV series)|The Haunting of Hill House]]'', a ten-episode horror series loosely based on Jackson's 1959 novel of the same name. The series was released on October 12.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.ign.com/articles/2018/08/27/netflix-haunting-of-hill-house-premiere-date-photos-cast|title=Netflix's The Haunting of Hill House Releases Premiere Date and First Look Photos|last=Prudom|first=Laura|date=August 27, 2018|website=IGN|language=en-US|access-date=October 15, 2018}}</ref>
*In 2018, [[The Kennedy/Marshall Company|Kennedy/Marshall]] began development through [[Paramount Pictures]] of a feature-length film based on Jackson's short story "[[The Lottery]]". The screenplay will be written by Jake Wade Wall.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://deadline.com/2018/07/shirley-jackson-the-lottery-first-feature-film-kennedy-marshall-paramount-pictures-1202432113/|title=Shirley Jackson's Classic Story 'The Lottery' Gets First Feature Film Treatment With Kennedy/Marshall At Paramount Pictures|last=Busch|first=Anita|date=July 25, 2018|work=Deadline|access-date=October 15, 2018|language=en-US}}</ref>

==Awards and honors==
*1944 – ''Best American Short Stories 1944'': "Come Dance with Me in Ireland"
*1949 – ''[[O. Henry Award|O. Henry Prize Stories]] 1949'': "[[The Lottery]]"<ref>{{cite magazine |last1=Franklin |first1=Ruth |author1-link=Ruth Franklin |title='The Lottery' Letters |url=https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-lottery-letters |access-date=October 30, 2022 |magazine=The New Yorker |date=June 25, 2013}}</ref>
*1951 – ''Best American Short Stories 1951'': "The Summer People"<ref>{{cite book |last1=Jackson |first1=Shirley |title=The Summer People |url=https://jerrywbrown.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/The-Summer-People-Jackson-Shirley.pdf |access-date=October 30, 2022}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=Appel |first1=Jacob M. |title=Stories We Love: "The Summer People," by Shirley Jackson |url=https://fictionwritersreview.com/shoptalk/stories-we-love-the-summer-people-by-shirley-jackson/ |website=Fiction Writers Review |access-date=October 30, 2022}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title='The Summer People', Shirley Jackson - A Text Analysis |url=http://www.lessonplansonline.com.au/text-analysis-summer-people-shirley-jackson/ |website=Lesson Plans Online |access-date=October 30, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221030163130/http://www.lessonplansonline.com.au/text-analysis-summer-people-shirley-jackson/ |archive-date=October 30, 2022}}</ref>
*1956 – ''Best American Short Stories 1956'': "One Ordinary Day, with Peanuts"
*1959 – ''[[The New York Times Book Review|New York Times Book Review]]'s'' "Best Fiction of 1959" includes ''[[The Haunting of Hill House]]''.
*1960 – [[National Book Award]] nomination: ''The Haunting of Hill House''
*1961 – [[Mystery Writers of America]] [[Edgar Award|Edgar Allan Poe Award]] nomination for Best Short Story: "[[Louisa, Please Come Home]]"
*1962 – ''[[Time (magazine)|Time]]'' magazine's "Ten Best Novels" of the year includes ''[[We Have Always Lived in the Castle]]''.
*1964 – ''Best American Short Stories 1964'': "Birthday Party"
*1966 – Mystery Writers of America Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Short Story: "[[The Possibility of Evil]]"
*1966 – ''New York Times Book Review's'' "Best Fiction of 1966" includes ''The Magic of Shirley Jackson''.
*1968 – ''New York Times Book Review's'' "Best Fiction of 1968" includes ''Come Along with Me''.
*2006 - Mystery Writers of America Edgar Allan Poe Award nomination for Best Short Story:  "Family Treasures"
*2007 – The [[Shirley Jackson Award]] is established for outstanding achievement in the literature of psychological suspense, horror, and the [[Dark fantasy|dark fantastic]].

==Legacy==
{{Further|Shirley Jackson Award}}
In 2007, the [[Shirley Jackson Award]]s were established with permission of Jackson's estate. They are in recognition of her legacy in writing, and are awarded for outstanding achievement in the literature of psychological suspense, horror, and the dark fantastic. The awards are presented at [[Readercon]].<ref name="globe">{{cite news |last=Gardner |first=Jan |title=Shelf Life |url=http://www.boston.com/ae/books/articles/2010/06/27/shelf_life/ |access-date=October 16, 2010 |newspaper=The Boston Globe |date=June 27, 2010}}</ref><ref name="salon">{{cite web |last=Miller |first=Laura |title=Is Shirley Jackson a great American writer? |url=https://www.salon.com/books/laura_miller/2010/07/14/shirley_jackson/ |website=Salon.com |date=July 14, 2010 |access-date=  October 16, 2010}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.shirleyjacksonawards.org/ |title=The Shirley Jackson Awards |access-date=September 28, 2013}}</ref>

In 2014, [[Susan Scarf Merrell]] published a well-received thriller, ''Shirley: A Novel'', about Jackson, her husband, a fictional couple who move in with them, and a missing girl.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/susan-scarf-merrell/shirley/  |title=Shirley: A Novel by Susan Scarf Merrell (June 12, 2014) |website=Kirkus Review |access-date=October 18, 2019}}</ref> In 2020, the novel was adapted into a feature film, ''[[Shirley (2020 film)|Shirley]]'', directed by [[Josephine Decker]].<ref>{{Cite web |last=O'Malley |first=Sheila |date=2020-06-05 |title=Shirley movie review & film summary (2020) |url=https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/shirley-movie-review-2020 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240226012925/https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/shirley-movie-review-2020 |archive-date=2024-02-26 |access-date=2024-06-27 |website=[[RogerEbert.com]] |language=en}}</ref> [[Elisabeth Moss]] portrays Jackson and [[Michael Stuhlbarg]] costars as Stanley Edgar Hyman.

In 2016, journalist [[Ruth Franklin]] published ''Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life'', a biography examining the influence of Jackson's upbringing, marriage, and addictions upon her work, while positioning Jackson as a major figure in American literature and examiner of postwar American anxieties via "domestic horror." Franklin's biography would go on to receive the [[National Book Critics Circle Award]] for Biography, the [[Edgar Award]] for Critical/Biographical Work, and the [[Bram Stoker Award for Best Non-Fiction]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://wwnorton.com/books/9780871403131  |title=Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life - Ruth Franklin  |website= W. W. Norton & Company |access-date=June 8, 2020}}</ref> Franklin also wrote the foreword for the 2021 publication ''Shirley Jackson: A Companion.'' This collection features comprehensive critical engagement with Jackson's works, including those that have received less scholarly attention.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Shirley Jackson : a companion|others=Woofter, Kristopher, 1971-|year=2021|isbn=978-1-80079-074-2|location=Oxford|oclc=1202733172}}</ref>

Since at least 2015, Jackson's adopted home of North Bennington has honored her legacy by celebrating Shirley Jackson Day on June 27, the day the fictional story "The Lottery" took place.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.benningtonbanner.com/community/ci_28376945/shirley-jackson-day-returns-north-bennington|title=Shirley Jackson Day Returns to North Bennington|website=[[Bennington Banner]]|access-date=May 31, 2016|archive-date=July 2, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160702011948/http://www.benningtonbanner.com/community/ci_28376945/shirley-jackson-day-returns-north-bennington|url-status=dead}}</ref>

Jackson has been cited as an influence on a diverse set of authors, including [[Neil Gaiman]], [[Stephen King]], [[Sarah Waters]], [[Nigel Kneale]], [[Claire Fuller]], [[Joanne Harris]],<ref name="Guardian 14 December 2016">{{cite news |last= Harris |first= Joanne | author-link= Joanne Harris| title= Shirley Jackson centenary: a quiet, hidden rage |url= https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/dec/14/shirley-jackson-centenary-quiet-hidden-rage-joanne-harris| date= December 14, 2016 |newspaper= [[The Guardian]] |location=London| access-date=  December 22, 2016 }}</ref> and [[Richard Matheson]].<ref>{{cite web|last=Murphy|first=Bernice|date=August 31, 2004|url=http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=2326|title= Shirley Jackson (1916–1965)|website=[[The Literary Encyclopedia (English)|The Literary Encyclopedia]]|access-date=February 5, 2018}} {{subscription required}}</ref>

===Critical assessment===
Lenemaja Friedman's ''Shirley Jackson'' (Twayne Publishers, 1975) was the first published survey of Jackson's life and work. Judy Oppenheimer also covers Shirley Jackson's life and career in ''Private Demons: The Life of Shirley Jackson'' (Putnam, 1988). [[S. T. Joshi]]'s ''The Modern Weird Tale'' (2001) offers a critical essay on Jackson's work.<ref name="Joshi 2001">{{cite book| last= Joshi |first= S. T. | title= The Modern Weird Tale: A Critique of Horror Fiction | date =June 30, 2001 |publisher=[[McFarland & Company]]  | isbn= 978-0786409860| chapter= Shirley Jackson: Domestic Horror }}</ref>

A comprehensive overview of Jackson's short fiction is Joan Wylie Hall's ''Shirley Jackson: A Study of the Short Fiction'' (Twayne Publishers, 1993).<ref name="openlibrary-1731871M">{{cite book |last1=Hall |first1=Joan Wylie |title=Shirley Jackson: a study of the short fiction |publisher=Twayne Publishers |date=1993 |isbn=9780805708530 |ol=1731871M }}</ref> The only critical bibliography of Jackson's work is Paul N. Reinsch's ''A Critical Bibliography of Shirley Jackson, American Writer (1919–1965): Reviews, Criticism, Adaptations'' ([[Lewiston, New York]]: [[Edwin Mellen Press]], 2001).<ref>{{cite book |last1=Reinsch |first1=Paul N. |title=A History of Hauntings: A Critical Bibliography of Shirley Jackson |date=1998 |publisher=George Mason University |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ECj5NwAACAAJ |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Reinsch |first1=Paul N. |title=A Critical Bibliography of Shirley Jackson, American Writer (1919-1965): Reviews, Criticism, Adaptations |date=2001 |location=[[Lewiston, New York]]|publisher=[[Edwin Mellen Press]] |isbn=978-0-7734-7393-5 |language=en}}</ref> Darryl Hattenhauer also provides a comprehensive survey of all of Jackson's fiction in ''Shirley Jackson's American Gothic'' (State University of New York Press, 2003). Bernice Murphy's ''Shirley Jackson: Essays on the Literary Legacy'' ([[McFarland & Company]], 2005) is a collection of commentaries on Jackson's work. Colin Hains's ''Frightened by a Word: Shirley Jackson & Lesbian Gothic'' (2007) explores the lesbian themes in Jackson's major novels.<ref name="Haines 2007">{{cite book| last= Haines |first= Colin | title= Frightened by a Word: Shirley Jackson & Lesbian Gothic (Studia Anglistica Upsaliensia) | date =December 31, 2007 | publisher = Uppsala Universitet | isbn= 978-9155468446 }}</ref>

According to the post-feminist critic [[Elaine Showalter]], Jackson's work is the single most important mid-twentieth-century body of literary output yet to have its value reevaluated by critics.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/shirley-jackson-a-rather-haunted-life/2016/09/15/4293b85e-5f2b-11e6-af8e-54aa2e849447_story.html|title=Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life|author=Elaine Showalter|date=September 22, 2016|newspaper=The Washington Post|access-date=February 13, 2017}}</ref> In a March&nbsp;4, 2009, podcast distributed by the business publisher ''The Economist'', Showalter also noted that [[Joyce Carol Oates]] had edited a collection of Jackson's work called ''Shirley Jackson Novels and Stories'' that was published in the [[Library of America]] series.<ref name="Library of America">{{cite book| last= Jackson |first= Shirley | editor-last= Oates |editor-first= Joyce Carol | title= Shirley Jackson: Novels and Stories | date=May 27, 2010 | publisher= [[Library of America]] | isbn= 978-1598530728 }}</ref><ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/10/nyregion/public-lives-the-mostly-late-greats-in-new-circulation.html|title=PUBLIC LIVES; The (Mostly Late) Greats, in New Circulation|author=Robin Finn|date=July 10, 2001|newspaper=The New York Times|access-date=February 13, 2017}}</ref>

Oates wrote of Jackson's fiction: "Characterized by the caprice and fatalism of fairy tales, the fiction of Shirley Jackson exerts a mordant, hypnotic spell."<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2016/10/27/shirley-jackson-in-love-death/|title=Shirley Jackson in Love & Death|last=Oates|first=Joyce Carol|journal=New York Review of Books|date=October 27, 2016|access-date=August 15, 2019|language=en|issn=0028-7504}}</ref>

Jackson's husband wrote in his preface to a posthumous anthology of her work that "she consistently refused to be interviewed, to explain or promote her work in any fashion, or to take public stands and be the pundit of the [[Sunday magazine|Sunday supplements]]. She believed that her books would speak for her clearly enough over the years".<ref name="Hyman-ix">{{cite book |last=Hyman |first=Stanley Edgar |title=The Magic of Shirley Jackson |place=New York|publisher=[[Farrar, Straus and Giroux]] |year=1966 |chapter=Preface|page=ix|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=N9E_IacN850C&pg=PR9|isbn=9780374196042 }}</ref> Hyman insisted that the dark visions found in Jackson's work were not, as some critics claimed, the product of "personal, even neurotic, fantasies", but, rather, comprised "a sensitive and faithful anatomy" of the [[Cold War]] era in which she lived, "fitting symbols for [a] distressing world of the concentration camp and the Bomb".<ref name="Hyman-viii">
{{cite book |last=Hyman |first=Stanley Edgar |title=The Magic of Shirley Jackson |place=New York|publisher=[[Farrar, Straus and Giroux]] |year=1966 |chapter=Preface|page=viii|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=N9E_IacN850C&pg=PR8|isbn=9780374196042 }}</ref> Jackson may even have taken pleasure in the subversive impact of her work, as indicated by Hyman's statement that she "was always proud that the [[Union of South Africa]] banned 'The Lottery', and she felt that ''they'' at least understood the story".<ref name="Hyman-viii"/>

The 1980s witnessed considerable scholarly interest in Jackson's work. Peter Kosenko, a Marxist critic, advanced an economic interpretation of "The Lottery" that focused on "the inequitable stratification of the social order".<ref>{{cite journal |title=A Marxist/Feminist Reading of Shirley Jackson's ''The Lottery'' |journal=New Orleans Review |volume=12 |issue=1 |date=Spring 1985 |pages=27–32}}</ref> Sue Veregge Lape argued in her Ph.D. thesis that feminist critics who did not consider Jackson to be a feminist played a significant role in her lack of earlier critical attention.<ref>{{cite thesis |last=Lape |first=Sue Veregge |date=1992 |title='The Lottery's' hostage: The life and feminist fiction of Shirley Jackson |type=Ph.D. |institution=Ohio State University |url=https://etd.ohiolink.edu/!etd.send_file?accession=osu1237656492&disposition=inline}}</ref> In contrast, Jacob Appel has written that Jackson was an "anti-regionalist writer" whose criticism of New England proved unpalatable to the American literary establishment.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Appel |first=Jacob |title=Shirley Jackson's Anti-Regionalism |journal=Florida English |volume=10 |page=3}}</ref>

In 2009, critic [[Harold Bloom]] published an extensive study of Jackson's work, challenging the notion that it was worthy of inclusion in the [[Western canon]]; Bloom wrote of "The Lottery", specifically: "Her art of narration [stays] on the surface, and could not depict individual identities. Even 'The Lottery' wounds you once, and once only."{{sfn|Bloom|2009|p=10}}

== Works ==
{{Incomplete list|date=December 2016}}

===Novels===
*''[[The Road Through the Wall]]'' (Farrar, Straus, 1948)
*''[[Hangsaman]]'' (Farrar, Straus and Young, 1951)
*''[[The Bird's Nest (novel)|The Bird's Nest]]'' (Farrar, Straus and Young, 1954)
*''[[The Sundial]]'' (Farrar, Straus and Cudahy, 1958)
*''[[The Haunting of Hill House]]'' (Viking, 1959)
*''[[We Have Always Lived in the Castle]]'' (Viking, 1962)
*''Shirley Jackson: Four Novels of the 1940s & 50s'', ed. Ruth Franklin (Library of America, 2020)

===Short fiction===
====Collections====
*''[[The Lottery and Other Stories]]'' (Farrar, Straus, 1949)
*''The Magic of Shirley Jackson'' (ed. Stanley Edgar Hyman; Farrar, Straus, 1966) Contains eleven short stories, all previously appearing in ''The Lottery and Other Stories'', along with ''The Bird's Nest'', ''Life Among the Savages'', and ''Raising Demons''.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Jackson |first=Shirley |url=https://archive.org/details/magicofshirleyja0000jack/page/n6/mode/1up |title=The Magic of Shirley Jackson |publisher=Farrar, Straus & Giroux |year=1965 |location=New York |page=v|isbn=9780374651008 }}</ref>
*''[[Come Along with Me (collection)|Come Along with Me]]: Part of a Novel, Sixteen Stories, and Three Lectures'' (ed. Stanley Edgar Hyman; Viking, 1968)
*''[[Just an Ordinary Day]]'' (ed. Laurence & Sarah Hyman; Bantam, 1996)
*''Shirley Jackson: Novels & Stories'' (ed. Joyce Carol Oates; Library of America, 2010)
*''[[Let Me Tell You: New Stories, Essays, and Other Writings]]''  (ed. Laurence & Sarah Hyman; Random House, 2015)
*''Dark Tales'' (Penguin, 2016) Contains seventeen stories, previously appearing in ''Come Along with Me'', ''Just an Ordinary Day'', and ''Let Me Tell You'', with a preface by [[Ottessa Moshfegh]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Jackson |first=Shirley |url=https://archive.org/details/darktales0000jack/page/n5/mode/2up?view=theater |title=Dark Tales |publisher=Penguin Books |year=2016 |isbn=9780143132004 |location=New York |page=v}}</ref>

====Short stories====
{{div col|colwidth=35em}}
*"About Two Nice People", ''[[Ladies' Home Journal]]'', July 1951
*"Account Closed", ''[[Good Housekeeping]]'', April 1950
*"After You, My Dear Alphonse", ''[[The New Yorker]]'', January 1943
*"Afternoon in Linen", ''The New Yorker'', September 4, 1943
*"All the Girls Were Dancing", ''[[Collier's]]'', November 11, 1950
*"All She Said Was Yes", ''[[Vogue (magazine)|Vogue]]'', November 1, 1962
*"Alone in a Den of Cubs", ''[[Woman's Day]]'', December 1953
*"Aunt Gertrude", ''[[Harper's]]'', April 1954
*"The Bakery", ''Peacock Alley'', November 1944
*"The Beautiful Stranger", ''[[Come Along with Me (novel)|Come Along with Me]]'' (Viking, 1968)
*"Birthday Party", ''Vogue'', January 1, 1963
*"The Box", ''[[Woman's Home Companion]]'', November 1952
*"Bulletin", ''[[The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction]]'', March 1954
*"The Bus", ''[[The Saturday Evening Post]]'', March 27, 1965
*"Call Me Ishmael", ''Spectre'', Fall 1939
*"A Cauliflower in Her Hair", ''[[Mademoiselle (magazine)|Mademoiselle]]'', December 1944
*"[[Charles (short story)|Charles]]", ''Mademoiselle'', July 1948
*"The Clothespin Dolls", ''Woman's Day'', March 1953
*"Colloquy", ''The New Yorker'', August 5, 1944
*"Come Dance with Me in Ireland", ''The New Yorker'', May 15, 1943
*"Concerning … Tomorrow", ''Syracusan'', March 1939
*"The Daemon Lover ['The Phantom Lover']", ''Woman's Home Companion'', February 1949
*"Daughter, Come Home", ''[[Charm (magazine)|Charm]]'', May 1944
*"Day of Glory", ''Woman's Day'', February 1953
*"Dinner for a Gentleman", ''Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life'', September 2016
*"Don't Tell Daddy", ''Woman's Home Companion'', February 1954
*"Dorothy and My Grandmother and the Sailors", ''The Lottery and Other Stories'' (Farrar, Straus, 1949)
*"The Dummy", April 1949
*"Elizabeth", ''The Lottery and Other Stories'' (Farrar, Straus, 1949)
*"Every Boy Should Learn to Play the Trumpet", ''Woman's Home Companion'', October 1956
*"Family Magician", ''Woman's Home Companion'', September 1949
*"Family Treasures", ''Let Me Tell You'', (Random House, 2015)
*"A Fine Old Firm", ''The New Yorker'', March 4, 1944
*"The First Car Is the Hardest", ''Harper's'', February 1952
*"Flower Garden", ''The Lottery and Other Stories'' (Farrar, Straus, 1949)
*"The Friends", ''Charm'', November 1953
*"The Gift", ''Charm'', December 1944
*"The Good Wife", ''Just an Ordinary Day'' (Bantam, 1996)
*"Got a Letter from Jimmy", ''The Lottery and Other Stories'' (Farrar, Straus, 1949)
*"A Great Voice Stilled", ''[[Playboy]]'', March 1960
*"Had We But World Enough", ''Spectre'', Spring 1940
*"Happy Birthday to Baby", ''Charm'', November 1952
*"Home", ''Ladies' Home Journal'', August 1965
*"The Homecoming", ''Charm'', April 1945
*"The Honeymoon of Mrs Smith", ''Just an Ordinary Day'' (Bantam, 1996)
*"The House", ''Woman's Day'', May 1952
*"I Don't Kiss Strangers", ''Just an Ordinary Day'' (Bantam, 1996)
*"Indians Live in Tents", ''Just an Ordinary Day'' (Bantam, 1996)
*"An International Incident", ''The New Yorker'', September 12, 1943
*"I.O.U"., ''Just an Ordinary Day'' (Bantam, 1996)
*"The Island", ''New Mexico Quarterly Review'', 1950, vol. 3
*"It Isn't the Money", ''The New Yorker'', August 25, 1945
*"It's Only a Game", ''Harper's'', May 1956
*"Jack the Ripper", ''Just an Ordinary Day'' (Bantam, 1996)
*"Journey with a Lady", ''Harper's'', July 1952
*"Liaison a la Cockroach", ''Syracusan'', April 1939
*"[[Like Mother Used to Make]]", ''The Lottery and Other Stories'' (Farrar, Straus, 1949)
*"Little Dog Lost", ''Charm'', October 1943
*"A Little Magic", ''Woman's Home Companion'', January 1956
*"Little Old Lady", ''Mademoiselle'', September 1944
*"[[The Lottery]]", ''The New Yorker'', June 26, 1948
*"[[Louisa, Please Come Home]]", ''Ladies' Home Journal'', May 1960
*"[[The Lovely House]]", ''[[New World Writing]]'', n.2, 1952
*"The Lovely Night", ''Collier's'', April 8, 1950
*"Lucky to Get Away", ''Woman's Day'', August 1953
*"The Man in the Woods", ''The New Yorker'', April 28, 2014
*"Men with Their Big Shoes", ''[[Yale Review]]'', March 1947
*"The Missing Girl", ''The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction'', December 1957
*"Monday Morning", ''Woman's Home Companion'', November 1951
*"The Most Wonderful Thing", ''Good Housekeeping'', June 1952
*"Mother Is a Fortune Hunter", ''Woman's Home Companion,'' May 1954
*"Mrs. Melville Makes a Purchase", ''Charm'', October 1951
*"My Friend", ''Syracusan'', December 1938
*"My Life in Cats", ''Spectre'', Summer 1940
*"My Life with R.H. Macy", ''[[The New Republic]]'', December 22, 1941
*"My Son and the Bully", ''Good Housekeeping'', October 1949
*"Nice Day for a Baby", ''Woman's Home Companion'', July 1952
*"Night We All Had Grippe", ''Harper's'', January 1952
*"Nothing to Worry About", ''Charm'', July 1953
*"Of Course", ''The Lottery and Other Stories'' (Farrar, Straus, 1949)
*"The Omen", ''The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction'', March 1958
*"On the House", ''The New Yorker'', October 30, 1943
*"One Last Chance to Call", ''[[McCall's]]'', April 1956
*"One Ordinary Day, With Peanuts", ''The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction'', January 1955
*"The Order of Charlotte's Going", ''Charm'', July 1954
*"[[Paranoia (short story)|Paranoia]]", ''The New Yorker'', August 5, 2013
*"Pillar of Salt", ''Mademoiselle'', October 1948
*"[[The Possibility of Evil]]", ''The Saturday Evening Post'', December 18, 1965
*"Queen of the May", ''McCall's'', April 1955
*"The Renegade", ''Harper's'', November 1949
*"Root of Evil", ''Fantastic'', March–April 1953
*"The Second Mrs. Ellenoy", ''Reader's Digest'', July 1953
*"Seven Types of Ambiguity", ''Story'', 1943
*"Shopping Trip", ''Woman's Home Companion'', June 1953
*"The Smoking Room", ''Just an Ordinary Day'' (Bantam, 1996)
*"The Sneaker Crisis", ''Woman's Day'', October 1956
*"So Late on Sunday Morning", ''Woman's Home Companion'', September 1953
*"The Sorcerer's Apprentice", ''[[Timothy McSweeney's Quarterly Concern|McSweeney's]]'' #47, 2014
*"The Story We Used to Tell", ''Just an Ordinary Day'' (Bantam, 1996)
*"The Strangers", ''Collier's'', May 10, 1952
*"Strangers in Town", ''The Saturday Evening Post'', May 30, 1959
*"Summer Afternoon", ''Just an Ordinary Day'' (Bantam, 1996)
*"The Summer People", ''Charm'', 1950
*"The Third Baby's the Easiest", ''Harper's'', May 1949
*"The Tooth", ''The Hudson Review'', 1949, vol. 1, no. 4
*"Trial by Combat", ''The New Yorker'', December 16, 1944
*"The Very Strange House Next Door", ''Just an Ordinary Day'' (Bantam, 1996)
*"The Villager", ''The American Mercury'', August 1944
*"Visions of Sugarplums", ''Woman's Home Companion'', December 1952
*"What a Thought", ''Just an Ordinary Day'' (Bantam, 1996)
*"When Things Get Dark", ''The New Yorker'', December 30, 1944
*"Whistler's Grandmother", ''The New Yorker'', May 5, 1945
*"The Wishing Dime", ''Good Housekeeping'', September 1949
*"The Witch", ''The Lottery and Other Stories'' (Farrar, Straus, 1949)
*"Worldly Goods", ''Woman's Day'', May 1953
*"Y and I", ''Syracusan'', October 1938
*"Y and I and the Ouija Board", ''Syracusan'', November 1938
{{div col end}}
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!width=25%|Title
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|1948
|{{cite journal |author=Jackson, Shirley |date=June 26, 1948 |title=The lottery |journal=[[The New Yorker]]}}
|{{cite journal |author=Jackson, Shirley |date=July 27, 2020 |title=The lottery |department=Fiction. June 26, 1948 |journal=[[The New Yorker]] |volume=96 |issue=21 |pages=50–53 |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1948/06/26/the-lottery}}
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===Children's works===
*''The Witchcraft of Salem Village'' (Random House, 1956)
*''The Bad Children: A Play in One Act for Bad Children'' (Dramatic Publishing Company, 1958)
*''Nine Magic Wishes'' (Crowell-Collier, 1963)
*''Famous Sally'' (Harlin Quist, 1966)

===Memoirs===
*''[[Life Among the Savages|Life Among the Savages: An Uneasy Chronicle]]'' (Farrar, Straus and Young, 1953)
*''[[Raising Demons]]'' (Farrar, Straus and Cudahy, 1957)
*''Special Delivery: A Useful Book for Brand-New Mothers'' (Little, Brown, 1960)

==Notes==
{{notelist}}

==References==
{{Reflist|30em}}

==Works cited==
*{{cite book|last=Bloom|first=Harold|author-link=Harold Bloom|year=2009|title=Shirley Jackson|publisher=[[Infobase Publishing]]|isbn= 978-1-438-11631-0}}
*{{cite book|last=Franklin|first=Ruth|title=Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life|year=2016|publisher=Liveright|isbn=978-0-871-40313-1}}
* King, Stephen. ''[[Danse Macabre (King book)|Danse Macabre]]''. Everest House, 1981.
* {{cite book|last=Kittredge|first=Mary|chapter=The Other Side of Magic: A Few Remarks About Shirley Jackson|editor=Schweitzer, Darrell|editor-link=Darrell Schweitzer|title=Discovering Modern Horror Fiction|location=Mercer Island, WA|publisher=Starmont House|year=1985|pages=3–12}}  
* Kosenko, Peter. "[http://home.netwood.net/kosenko/jackson.html A Reading of Shirley Jackson's ''The Lottery''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200812204944/http://home.netwood.net/kosenko/jackson.html |date=August 12, 2020 }}. ''New Orleans Review'', vol. 12, no. 1 (Spring 1985), pp.&nbsp;27–32.
*{{cite book|last=Kunitz|first=Stanley|year=1973|orig-year=1955|title=Twentieth Century Authors: A Biographical Dictionary of Modern Literature|volume=1|publisher=H. W. Wilson|isbn=978-0-824-20049-7|url=https://archive.org/details/twentiethcentury00kuni_0}}
*{{cite book |editor1-last=Murphy |editor1-first=Bernice M. |title=Shirley Jackson: Essays on the Literary Legacy |date=October 5, 2005 |publisher=[[McFarland & Company]] |isbn=978-0-7864-2312-5 |language=en }}
**{{cite book |last1=Downey|first1=Dara|last2=Jones|first2=Darryl |editor1-last=Murphy |editor1-first=Bernice M. |title=Shirley Jackson: Essays on the Literary Legacy |date=October 5, 2005 |publisher=[[McFarland & Company]] |isbn=978-0-7864-2312-5 |language=en |chapter=Shirley Jackson and Stephen King|pages=214–236}}
**{{cite book |last=Murphy|first=Bernice M. |editor1-last=Murphy |editor1-first=Bernice M. |title=Shirley Jackson: Essays on the Literary Legacy |date=October 5, 2005 |publisher=[[McFarland & Company]] |isbn=978-0-7864-2312-5 |language=en |chapter='Do You Know Who I Am?': Reconsidering Shirley Jackson|pages=1–23}}
* {{cite book|last=Oppenheimer|first=Judy|title=Private Demons: The Life of Shirley Jackson|publisher=Putnam|year=1988|isbn=978-0-449-90405-3|url=https://archive.org/details/privatedemons00judy}}
* [[Laura Shapiro|Shapiro, Laura]]. ''Something from the Oven: Reinventing Dinner in 1950s America''.
* Shirley Jackson Papers. [[Library of Congress]], Washington, DC

==Further reading==
* {{cite journal |last1=Angeloch |first1=Dominic |date=2022 |title=Beyond the Uncanny: Shirley Jackson's Poetics of Alienation |journal=Orbis Litterarum |volume=77 |issue=4 |pages=217–237 |doi=10.1111/oli.12337|s2cid=245343042 |doi-access=free }}
* {{cite web |url=http://www.darkecho.com:80/darkecho/darkthot/jackson.html |title=Shirley Jackson: 'Delight in What I Fear' |first=Paula |last=Guran |date=1997 |publisher=DarkEcho|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171011130159/http://www.darkecho.com:80/darkecho/darkthot/jackson.html |archive-date=October 11, 2017 }}
* {{cite web |url=http://www.darkecho.com:80/darkecho/horroronline/jackson.html |title=Shirley Jackson & The Haunting of Hill House|first=Paula |last=Guran |date=1999 |publisher=DarkEcho|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180314130906/http://www.darkecho.com:80/darkecho/horroronline/jackson.html|archive-date=March 14, 2018}}
* {{cite book |last=Jackson |first=Shirley | editor-last=Hyman |editor-first=Laurence Jackson |editor2-last=Murphy |editor2-first=Bernice M. |title =The Letters of Shirley Jackson | location=New York |publisher=Random House |year=2021 |isbn=978-0-593-13464-1}}
* {{cite web |url=https://www.salon.com/1997/01/06/jackson_3/ |title=Monstrous Acts and Little Murders |first=Jonathan |last=Lethem |date=1997 |work=salon.com |author-link=Jonathan Lethem}}
* {{cite thesis |url=http://www.duo.uio.no/publ/engelsk/2005/27019/Norjordet.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150923220946/http://www.duo.uio.no/publ/engelsk/2005/27019/Norjordet.pdf |date=2005 |archive-date=September 23, 2015 |title=The Tall Man in the Blue Suit: Witchcraft, Folklore, and Reality in Shirley Jackson's 'The Lottery, or the Adventures of James Harris' |last=Nørjordet |first=Håvard }}
* {{cite web |url=https://www.tabula-rasa.info/DarkAges/ShirleyJackson.html |title=Shirley Jackson: House and Guardians |first=Kyla |last=Ward |date=1995 |publisher=Tabula Rasa}}

==External links==
{{Wikiquote}}
*{{IMDb name|nm0414047}}
*{{ISFDB name|694}}
*{{FadedPage|id=Jackson, Shirley|name=Shirley Jackson|author=yes}}
*{{OL author|id=507165A|cname=Shirley Jackson}}
*[https://www.britannica.com/biography/Shirley-Jackson Shirley Jackson] at [[Encyclopædia Britannica Online|''Encyclopædia Britannica'' Online]]
*[https://sf-encyclopedia.com/fe/jackson_shirley Jackson, Shirley] at ''[[The Encyclopedia of Fantasy]]''
*{{LCAuth|n79125801|Shirley Jackson|64|}}

'''Audio files'''
* [https://archive.org/download/NBC_short_story/510314_04_The_Lottery.mp3 "The Lottery"]: ''NBC Short Story'', NBC radio, 1951
* [http://www.folkways.si.edu/albumdetails.aspx?itemid=1673 ''The Daemon Lover and the Lottery: As Read by Shirley Jackson''], ([[Folkways Records]], 1960)

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Jackson, Shirley}}
[[Category:Shirley Jackson| ]]
[[Category:1916 births]]
[[Category:1965 deaths]]
[[Category:20th-century American memoirists]]
[[Category:20th-century American novelists]]
[[Category:20th-century American short story writers]]
[[Category:20th-century American women novelists]]
[[Category:American horror writers]]
[[Category:American women memoirists]]
[[Category:American women short story writers]]
[[Category:Edgar Award winners]]
[[Category:American ghost story writers]]
[[Category:Novelists from Vermont]]
[[Category:People from Bennington, Vermont]]
[[Category:Syracuse University alumni]]
[[Category:The New Yorker people]]
[[Category:American weird fiction writers]]
[[Category:American women horror writers]]
[[Category:American women mystery writers]]
[[Category:Novelists from San Francisco]]
[[Category:Writers of Gothic fiction]]