Novels and stories : the lottery, the haunting of Hill House, We have always lived in the castle, other stories and sketches
(Book)

Contents selected by Joyce Carol Oates.

Includes bibliographical references.

"In just two decades--she died in 1965, at the age of 48--Shirley Jackson created a weird and distinctive world of fiction, one in which a grinning death's head lies just behind the smiling mask of so-called everyday life. She first displayed her genius for conjuring daylight demons in The Lottery, the classic collection whose world-famous title story is an allegory of bloodlust and blind obedience to tradition. She perfected it in two great Gothic novels: The Haunting of Hill House, 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, the unrepentant confessions of Miss Merricat Blackwood, a cunning adolescent who has gone to quite unusual lengths to preserve her ideal of family happiness. All three books are here, together with 21 other stories and sketchest--two of them previously uncollected--that present the author in all her many modes: unrivalled mistress of the macabre, groundbreaking domestic humorist, and subtle social satirist."--Jacket.