Shirley Jackson was an
AmericanThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
author. A popular writer in her time, her work has received increasing attention from literary critics in recent years. She has influenced such writers as
Neil GaimanNeil Richard Gaiman born 10 November 1960)is an English author of short fiction, novels, comic books, graphic novels, audio theatre and films. His notable works include the comic book series The Sandman and novels Stardust, American Gods, Coraline, and The Graveyard Book...
,
Stephen KingStephen Edwin King is an American author of contemporary horror, suspense, science fiction and fantasy fiction. His books have sold more than 350 million copies and have been adapted into a number of feature films, television movies and comic books...
,
Nigel KnealeNigel Kneale was a British screenwriter from the Isle of Man. Active in television, film, radio drama and prose fiction, he wrote professionally for over fifty years, was a winner of the Somerset Maugham Award and was twice nominated for the British Film Award for Best Screenplay...
and
Richard MathesonRichard Burton Matheson is an American author and screenwriter, primarily in the fantasy, horror, and science fiction genres. He is perhaps best known as the author of What Dreams May Come, Bid Time Return, A Stir of Echoes, The Incredible Shrinking Man, and I Am Legend, all of which have been...
.
She is best known for the
short storyA short story is a work of fiction that is usually written in prose, often in narrative format. This format tends to be more pointed than longer works of fiction, such as novellas and novels. Short story definitions based on length differ somewhat, even among professional writers, in part because...
"
The Lottery"The Lottery" is a short story by Shirley Jackson, first published in the June 26, 1948, issue of The New Yorker. Written the same month it was published, it is ranked today as "one of the most famous short stories in the history of American literature"....
" (1948), which suggests a secret, sinister underside to bucolic small-town America. In her critical biography of Jackson, Lenemaja Friedman notes that when "The Lottery" was published in the June 26, 1948, issue of
The New YorkerThe New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
, it received a response that "no New Yorker story had ever received." Hundreds of letters poured in that were characterized by, as Jackson put it, "bewilderment, speculation and old-fashioned abuse."
In the July 22, 1948, issue of the
San Francisco Chroniclethumb|right|upright|The Chronicle Building following the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|1906 earthquake]] and fireThe San Francisco Chronicle is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, but distributed throughout Northern and Central California,...
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.
Jackson's husband, the literary critic
Stanley Edgar HymanStanley Edgar Hyman was a literary critic who wrote primarily about critical methods: the distinct strategies critics use in approaching literary texts. Though most likely to be remembered today as the husband of writer Shirley Jackson, he was influential for the development of literary theory in...
, 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 supplementsA Sunday magazine is a publication inserted into a Sunday newspaper. It also has been known as a Sunday supplement, Sunday newspaper magazine or Sunday magazine section...
. She believed that her books would speak for her clearly enough over the years." Hyman insisted the darker aspects of Jackson's works were not, as some critics claimed, the product of "personal, even neurotic, fantasies," but that Jackson intended, as "a sensitive and faithful anatomy of our times, fitting symbols for our distressing world of the concentration camp and the Bomb," to mirror humanity's
Cold WarThe Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
-era fears. Jackson may even have taken pleasure in the subversive impact of her work, as evidenced by Hyman's statement that she "was always proud that the
Union of South AfricaThe Union of South Africa is the historic predecessor to the present-day Republic of South Africa. It came into being on 31 May 1910 with the unification of the previously separate colonies of the Cape, Natal, Transvaal and the Orange Free State...
banned 'The Lottery,' and she felt that they at least understood the story".
California and New York
Born Shirley Hardie Jackson in San Francisco,
CaliforniaCalifornia is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
, to Leslie and Geraldine Jackson, Shirley and her family lived in the community of
Burlingame, CaliforniaBurlingame is a city in San Mateo County, California. It is located on the San Francisco Peninsula and has a significant shoreline on San Francisco Bay. The city is named after diplomat Anson Burlingame. It is renowned for its many surviving examples of Victorian architecture, its affluence, and...
, an affluent middle-class
suburbThe word suburb mostly refers to a residential area, either existing as part of a city or as a separate residential community within commuting distance of a city . Some suburbs have a degree of administrative autonomy, and most have lower population density than inner city neighborhoods...
that would feature in Shirley's first novel The Road Through the Wall. The Jackson family then relocated to
Rochester, New YorkRochester is a city in Monroe County, New York, south of Lake Ontario in the United States. Known as The World's Image Centre, it was also once known as The Flour City, and more recently as The Flower City...
, where Shirley attended Brighton High School and graduated in 1934. For college, she first attended the
University of RochesterThe University of Rochester is a private, nonsectarian, research university in Rochester, New York, United States. The university grants undergraduate and graduate degrees, including doctoral and professional degrees. The university has six schools and various interdisciplinary programs.The...
, before graduating with a BA from
Syracuse UniversitySyracuse University is a private research university located in Syracuse, New York, United States. Its roots can be traced back to Genesee Wesleyan Seminary, founded by the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1832, which also later founded Genesee College...
in 1940.
While a student at Syracuse, Shirley became involved with the campus
literary magazineA literary magazine is a periodical devoted to literature in a broad sense. Literary magazines usually publish short stories, poetry and essays along with literary criticism, book reviews, biographical profiles of authors, interviews and letters...
, through which she met her future husband
Stanley Edgar HymanStanley Edgar Hyman was a literary critic who wrote primarily about critical methods: the distinct strategies critics use in approaching literary texts. Though most likely to be remembered today as the husband of writer Shirley Jackson, he was influential for the development of literary theory in...
, who would become a noted literary critic. For Stanley J. Kunitz and Howard Harcraft's Twentieth Century Authors (1954), she wrote:
- 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 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 and a collection of short stories, The Lottery. Life Among the Savages is a disrespectful memoir of my children.
Although Jackson claimed to have been born in 1919 in order to appear younger than her husband, biographer Judy Oppenheimer determined that she was actually born in 1916.
Vermont
The Hymans eventually settled in
North Bennington, VermontNorth Bennington is an incorporated village in the town of Bennington in Bennington County, Vermont, United States. The population was 1,428 at the 2000 census....
, where Stanley Hyman became a professor at
Bennington CollegeBennington College is a liberal arts college located in Bennington, Vermont, USA. The college was founded in 1932 as a women's college and became co-educational in 1969.-History:-Early years:...
while Shirley continued to publish novels and short stories while caring for their children. Her novel Hangsaman (1951) and her short story "The Missing Girl" (from Just an Ordinary Day, the 1995 collection of previously unpublished and/or uncollected short stories) both contain certain elements similar to the mysterious real-life December 1, 1946, disappearance of 18-year-old Bennington College sophomore
Paula Jean WeldenPaula Jean Welden was a Bennington College, Vermont, USA, sophomore whose disappearance while walking on Vermont's Long Trail hiking route remains an unsolved mystery.-Background:...
of
Stamford, ConnecticutStamford is a city in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. According to the 2010 census, the population of the city is 122,643, making it the fourth largest city in the state and the eighth largest city in New England...
. This event, which remains unsolved to this day, took place in the wooded wilderness of the
Glastenbury MountainGlastenbury Mountain is a mountain located in Bennington County, Vermont, in the Green Mountain National Forest.The mountain is part of the Green Mountains....
near
Bennington-People:* Chester Bennington, lead singer of rock bands Linkin Park and Dead by Sunrise* Geoffrey Bennington, Professor of French and Professor of Comparative Literature at Emory University* Ron Bennington, co-host of the Ron and Fez radio show...
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.
Eventually the Hyman children, Laurence (Laurie), Joanne (Jannie), Sarah (Sally), and Barry, would come to their own brand of literary fame as fictionalised versions of themselves in their mother's short stories. The Hymans were well-known for being colorful, generous hosts who surrounded themselves with literary talents, including
Ralph EllisonRalph Waldo Ellison was an American novelist, literary critic, scholar and writer. He was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Ellison is best known for his novel Invisible Man, which won the National Book Award in 1953...
. Both were enthusiastic readers whose personal library was estimated at over 100,000 books.
In addition to her adult literary novels, Jackson also wrote a children's novel, Nine Magic Wishes, available in an edition illustrated by her grandson, Miles Hyman, as well as a children's play based on
Hansel and Gretel"Hansel and Gretel" is a well-known fairy tale of German origin, recorded by the Brothers Grimm and published in 1812. Hansel and Gretel are a young brother and sister threatened by a cannibalistic hag living deep in the forest in a house constructed of cake and confectionery. The two children...
and entitled The Bad Children. In a series of short stories, later collected in the books
Life Among the SavagesLife Among the Savages is a collection of short stories edited into novel form, written by author Shirley Jackson. Originally these stories were published individually in women's magazines such as Good Housekeeping, Woman's Day, Mademoiselle, and others...
and Raising Demons, she presented a fictionalized version of her marriage and the experience of bringing up four children. These stories pioneered the "true-to-life funny-housewife stories" of the type later popularized by such writers as
Jean KerrJean Kerr was an American author and playwright born in Scranton, Pennsylvania and best known for her humorous bestseller, Please Don't Eat the Daisies, and the plays King of Hearts and Mary, Mary...
and
Erma BombeckErma Louise Bombeck was an American humorist who achieved great popularity for her newspaper column that described suburban home life from the mid-1960s until the late 1990s...
during the 1950s and 1960s.
Death
In 1965, Shirley Jackson died of heart failure in her sleep, at her home in North Bennington, at the age of 48. Shirley suffered throughout her life from various neuroses and
psychosomatic illnessPsychosomatic medicine is an interdisciplinary medical field studying the relationships of social, psychological, and behavioral factors on bodily processes and well-being in humans and animals...
es. These ailments, along with the various prescription drugs used to treat them, may have contributed to her declining health and early death. However, at the time of her death, Jackson was overweight and a heavy smoker. After her death, her husband released a posthumous volume of her work, Come Along With Me, containing several chapters of her unfinished last novel as well as several rare short stories (among them "Louisa, Please Come Home") and three speeches given by Jackson in her writing seminars.
In addition to the aforementioned Hangsaman, her other novels include The Bird's Nest (1954) and
The SundialThe Sundial is a 1958 novel by author Shirley Jackson.-Plot summary:The Sundial tells the story of the residents of the Halloran house, opening on the evening of the funeral of Lionel Halloran, the house's master...
(1958).
The Haunting of Hill HouseFor the Richard Matheson novel, see Hell House, made into a film titled The Legend of Hell House.The Haunting of Hill House is a 1959 novel by author Shirley Jackson. Finalist for the National Book Award and considered one of the best literary ghost stories published during the twentieth century,...
(1959) is regarded by many, including Stephen King, as one of the important horror novels of the 20th century. This contemporary updating of the classic
ghost storyA ghost story may be any piece of fiction, or drama, or an account of an experience, that includes a ghost, or simply takes as a premise the possibility of ghosts or characters' belief in them. Colloquially, the term can refer to any kind of scary story. In a narrower sense, the ghost story has...
has a vivid and powerful opening paragraph:
- No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.
Adaptations
In addition to radio, TV and theater adaptations, "The Lottery" has been filmed three times, most notably in 1969 as an acclaimed short film which director Larry Yust made for an
Encyclopædia BritannicaThe Encyclopædia Britannica , published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., is a general knowledge English-language encyclopaedia that is available in print, as a DVD, and on the Internet. It is written and continuously updated by about 100 full-time editors and more than 4,000 expert...
educational film series. The Academic Film Archive cited Yust's short "as one of the two bestselling educational films ever".
- Eleanor Parker
Eleanor Jean Parker is an American screen actress. Her versatility led to her being dubbed Woman of a Thousand Faces, the title of her biography by Doug McClelland.- Early life :...
starred in Hugo HaasHugo Haas was a Czech film actor, director and writer. He appeared in over 60 films between 1926 and 1962, as well as directing 20 films between 1933 and 1962....
' LizzieLizzie is a 1957 drama film directed by Hugo Haas. The movie is based on the novel The Bird's Nest by Shirley Jackson and stars Eleanor Parker, Richard Boone, and Joan Blondell. The popular songs "It's Not for Me to Say" and "Warm and Tender" were written for this film, and performed by Johnny...
(1957), based on The Bird's Nest, with a cast that included Richard BooneRichard Allen Boone was an American actor who starred in over 50 films and was notable for his roles in Westerns and for starring in the TV series Have Gun – Will Travel.-Early life:...
, Joan BlondellRose Joan Blondell was an American actress who performed in movies and on television for five decades as Joan Blondell.After winning a beauty pageant, Blondell embarked upon a film career...
, Marion RossMarion Ross is an American actress best known for her role as Marion Cunningham on the television series Happy Days from 1974 to 1984.-Early life:...
and Johnny MathisJohn Royce "Johnny" Mathis is an American singer of popular music. Starting his career with singles of standards, he became highly popular as an album artist, with several dozen of his albums achieving gold or platinum status, and 73 making the Billboard charts...
.
- In 1963, The Haunting of Hill House
For the Richard Matheson novel, see Hell House, made into a film titled The Legend of Hell House.The Haunting of Hill House is a 1959 novel by author Shirley Jackson. Finalist for the National Book Award and considered one of the best literary ghost stories published during the twentieth century,...
was adapted into the critically acclaimed film The HauntingThe Haunting is a 1963 British psychological horror film by American director Robert Wise and adapted by Nelson Gidding from the novel The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson. It stars Julie Harris, Claire Bloom, Richard Johnson, and Russ Tamblyn. The film centers around the conflict between...
, directed by Robert WiseRobert Earl Wise was an American sound effects editor, film editor, film producer and director...
. Jan de BontJan de Bont is a Dutch cinematographer, producer, and film director.-Early life and career:De Bont was born, one of 17 children, to a Roman Catholic family in Eindhoven, Netherlands. His earliest work after studying at the Amsterdam Film Academy was with the Dutch avant garde director Adriaan...
directed the critically panned 1999 remake.The Haunting is a 1999 remake of the 1963 horror film of the same name. Both films are based on the novel The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson, published in 1959. The Haunting was directed by Jan de Bont and stars Liam Neeson, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Owen Wilson and Lili Taylor...
- Jackson's 1962 novel We Have Always Lived in the Castle
We Have Always Lived in the Castle is the final novel by Shirley Jackson, published in 1962, three years before her death in 1965. In 1966, the novel was adapted into a play by Hugh Wheeler...
was adapted for the stage by Hugh WheelerHugh Callingham Wheeler was an English-born playwright, screenwriter, librettist, poet, and translator. He resided in the United States from 1934 until his death and became a naturalized citizen in 1942. He had attended London University.Under the noms de plume Patrick Quentin, Q...
in the mid-1960s. Directed by Garson KaninGarson Kanin was a prolific American writer and director of plays and films.-Film and stage career:...
and starring Shirley KnightShirley Enola Knight is an American stage, film and television actress. She has been nominated twice for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, in 1960 for The Dark at the Top of the Stairs and in 1962 for Sweet Bird of Youth....
, it opened on Broadway October 19, 1966. The David MerrickDavid Merrick was a prolific Tony Award-winning American theatrical producer.-Life and career:Born David Lee Margulois to Jewish parents in St. Louis, Missouri, Merrick graduated from Washington University, then studied law at the Jesuit-run Saint Louis University School of Law...
production closed after only nine performances at the Ethel Barrymore TheatreThe Ethel Barrymore Theatre is a legitimate Broadway theatre located at 243 West 47th Street in midtown-Manhattan, named for actress Ethel Barrymore....
, but Wheeler's play continues to be staged by regional theater companies.
- Joanne Woodward
Joanne Gignilliat Trimmier Woodward is an American actress, television and theatrical producer, and widow of Paul Newman...
directed Come Along with Me (1982), adapted from Jackson's unfinished novel, with a cast headed by Estelle ParsonsEstelle Margaret Parsons is an American theatre, film and television actress and occasional theatrical director.After studying law, Parsons became a singer before deciding to pursue a career in acting. She worked for the television program Today and made her stage debut in 1961...
and Sylvia SidneySylvia Sidney was an American actress who rose to prominence in the 1930s appearing in numerous crime dramas.-Early life:...
.
- In 2010 We Have Always Lived in the Castle
We Have Always Lived in the Castle is the final novel by Shirley Jackson, published in 1962, three years before her death in 1965. In 1966, the novel was adapted into a play by Hugh Wheeler...
was adapted into a musical drama by Adam BockAdam Bock is a Canadian playwright currently living in the United States. Adam was born in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. He is an artistic associate of the Shotgun Players, an award-winning San Francisco theater group. His play Medea Eats was produced in 2000 by Clubbed Thumb, who subsequently...
and Todd Almond and premiered at Yale Repertory TheatreThe Yale Repertory Theatre at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut was founded by Robert Brustein, dean of the Yale School of Drama in 1966, with the goal of facilitating a meaningful collaboration between theatre professionals and talented students. In the process it has become one of the...
on September 17, 2010. The production was directed by Anne Kauffman and starred Alexandra SochaAlexandra Socha is an American actress who took over the leading role of Wendla in the rock musical Spring Awakening in May 2008. She next appeared in the first Broadway revival of the Neil Simon play Brighton Beach Memoirs, as Nora.-Life and career:...
, Jenn GambateseJennifer "Gamby" Gambatese is an American actress and singer. She is gaining recognition by performing on stage, and even starring in Broadway productions. Gambatese has performed in the popular musical production of Disney's Tarzan.-Early life:...
, Bill Buell, and Sean PalmerSean Palmer is an actor, singer, and dancer of both stage and screen.His most recognizable role on television is that of Stanford Blatch's boyfriend, Marcus on the HBO series Sex and the City...
.
Magazines
In 1938, while she was studying at Syracuse, her first published story, "Janice," appeared, and the stories that followed were published in
Collier'sCollier's Weekly was an American magazine founded by Peter Fenelon Collier and published from 1888 to 1957. With the passage of decades, the title was shortened to Collier's....
,
Good HousekeepingGood Housekeeping is a women's magazine owned by the Hearst Corporation, featuring articles about women's interests, product testing by The Good Housekeeping Institute, recipes, diet, health as well as literary articles. It is well known for the "Good Housekeeping Seal," popularly known as the...
, Harper's,
MademoiselleMademoiselle was an influential women's magazine first published in 1935 by Street and Smith and later acquired by Condé Nast Publications....
,
The New RepublicThe magazine has also published two articles concerning income inequality, largely criticizing conservative economists for their attempts to deny the existence or negative effect increasing income inequality is having on the United States...
,
The New YorkerThe New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
,
Woman's DayWoman's Day is aimed at a female readership, covering such subjects as food, nutrition, fitness, beauty and fashion. The magazine edition is one of the "Seven Sisters", a group of women's service magazines....
,
Woman's Home CompanionWoman's Home Companion was an American monthly publication, published from 1873 to 1957. It was highly successful, climbing to a circulation peak of more than four million during the 1930s and 1940s....
and other publications.
In 1996, a crate of unpublished stories was found in the barn behind Jackson's house. The best of those stories, along with previously uncollected stories from various magazines, were published in the 1996 collection, Just an Ordinary Day. The title was taken from one of her stories for
The Magazine of Fantasy & Science FictionThe Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction is a digest-size American fantasy and science fiction magazine first published in 1949 by Mystery House and then by Fantasy House. Both were subsidiaries of Lawrence Spivak's Mercury Publications, which took over as publisher in 1958. Spilogale, Inc...
, "One Ordinary Day, with Peanuts." Jackson's papers are available in the
Library of CongressThe Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...
.
Awards
- 1960 - National Book Award nomination: The Haunting of Hill House
- 1962 - One of Time
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
s "Ten Best Novels" of 1962: We Have Always Lived in the Castle
- 1966 - Mystery Writers of America Edgar Award for Best Short Story: "The Possibility of Evil
"The Possibility of Evil" is a 1965 short story by Shirley Jackson. Published on December 18, 1965 in the Saturday Evening Post, a few months after her death, it won the 1966 Edgar Allan Poe Award for best mystery short story...
" (The Saturday Evening PostThe Saturday Evening Post is a bimonthly American magazine. It was published weekly under this title from 1897 until 1969, and quarterly and then bimonthly from 1971.-History:...
, December 18, 1965)
Literary studies
Lenemaja Friedman's Shirley Jackson (Twayne Publishers, 1975) is 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. JoshiSunand Tryambak Joshi — known as S. T. Joshi — is an award-winning Indian American literary critic, novelist, and a leading figure in the study of Howard Phillips Lovecraft and other authors of weird and fantastic fiction...
's The Modern Weird Tale (2001) offers a critical essay on Jackson's work.
A comprehensive overview of Jackson's short fiction is Joan Wylie Hall's Shirley Jackson: A Study of the Short Fiction (Twayne Publishers, 1993). 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 (Edwin Mellen Press, 2001). 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 recent "Shirley Jackson: Essays on the Literary Legacy" (McFarland, 2005) is a collection commentaries on Jackson's work.
According to the post-feminist critic
Elaine ShowalterElaine Showalter is an American literary critic, feminist, and writer on cultural and social issues. She is one of the founders of feminist literary criticism in United States academia, developing the concept and practice of gynocritics.She is well known and respected in both academic and popular...
, Jackson's work is the single most important mid-20th century body of literary output yet to be critically revalorized in the present day. In a March 4, 2009 podcast distributed by the renowned business publisher The Economist, Showalter also revealed
Joyce Carol OatesJoyce Carol Oates is an American author. Oates published her first book in 1963 and has since published over fifty novels, as well as many volumes of short stories, poetry, and nonfiction...
has edited a collection of Jackson's work called "Shirley Jackson Novels and Stories" that was published in the highly-esteemed
Library of AmericaThe Library of America is a nonprofit publisher of classic American literature.- Overview and history :Founded in 1979 with seed money from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Ford Foundation, the LoA has published over 200 volumes by a wide range of authors from Mark Twain to Philip...
series.
Shirley Jackson Awards
In 2007, the
Shirley Jackson AwardThe Shirley Jackson Awards are literary awards named after Shirley Jackson in recognition of her legacy in writing. These awards for outstanding achievement in the literature of psychological suspense, horror and the dark fantastic are presented at Readercon, an annual conference on imaginative...
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
ReaderconReadercon is an annual science fiction convention, held every July in the Boston, Massachusetts area, in Burlington, Massachusetts). It was founded by Bob Colby and statistician Eric Van in the 1980s with the goal of focusing exclusively on science fiction in the written form Readercon is an...
.
Sources
- King, Stephen. Danse Macabre
Danse Macabre is a non-fiction book by Stephen King, about horror fiction in print, radio, film and comics, and the genre's influence on United States popular culture...
. Everest House, 1981.
- Kosenko, Peter. "A Reading of Shirley Jackson's The Lottery". New Orleans Review, vol. 12, no. 1 (Spring 1985), pp. 27-32.
- Murphy, Bernice. Shirley Jackson: Essays on the Literary Legacy.
- Oppenheimer, Judy. Private Demons: The Life of Shirley Jackson. New York: Putnam, 1988.
- Shapiro, Laura. Something from the Oven: Reinventing Dinner in 1950s America.
- Shirley Jackson Papers. Library of Congress, Washington DC.
Further reading
Listen to
External links