Shirley Jackson
Shirley Jackson was an influential American 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 Stephen King, Nigel Kneale, and Richard Matheson.She is best known for her dystopian short story, "The Lottery" (1948), which suggests there is a deeply unsettling underside to bucolic, smalltown America. In her critical biography of Shirley Jackson, Lenemaja Friedman notes that when Shirley Jackson's story "The Lottery" was published in the June 28, 1948, issue of The New Yorker, 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."Jackson's husband, the literary critic Stanley Edgar Hyman, 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 supplements. 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 War-era fears. Jackson may even have taken pleasure in the subversive impact of her work, as revealed 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".In 1965, Jackson died of heart failure in her sleep, at her home in North Bennington Vermont, at the age of 48.
Abbiamo sempre vissuto nel castello
Shirley Jackson
«A Shirley Jackson, che non ha mai avuto bisogno di alzare la voce»: con questa dedica si apre L'incendiaria di Stephen King. È infatti con toni sommessi e deliziosamente sardonici che la diciottenne Mary Katherine ci racconta della grande casa avita dove vive reclusa, in uno stato di idilliaca felicità, con la bellissima sorella Constance e uno zio invalido. Non ci sarebbe nulla di strano nella loro passione per i minuti riti quotidiani, la buona cucina e il giardinaggio, se non fosse che tutti gli altri membri della famiglia Blackwood sono morti avvelenati sei anni prima, seduti a tavola, proprio lì in sala da pranzo. E quando in tanta armonia irrompe l'Estraneo (nella persona del cugino Charles), si snoda sotto i nostri occhi, con piccoli tocchi stregoneschi, una storia sottilmente perturbante che ha le ingannevoli caratteristiche formali di una commedia. Ma il malessere che ci invade via via, disorientandoci, ricorda molto da vicino i "brividi silenziosi e cumulativi" che - per usare le parole di un'ammiratrice, Dorothy Parker abbiamo provato leggendo La lotteria. Perché anche in queste pagine Shirley Jackson si dimostra somma maestra del Male - un Male tanto più allarmante in quanto non circoscritto ai "cattivi", ma come sotteso alla vita stessa, e riscattato solo da piccoli miracoli di follia.
Biz Hep Şatoda Yaşadık
Shirley Jackson
Dünyadan gizlenerek yaşayan iki kız kardeş ve gölgesini geçmişten bugüne, onların üzerine düşüren gizemli bir olay... Usta yazar Shirley Jackson, bu kısa ve mücevher misali pırıl pırıl romanda ters köşelerle örülü bir öykü anlatıyor, okura tuzaklar ve yanılsamalarla dolu bir zemin sunuyor. Biz Hep Şatoda Yaşadık, inişleri ve çıkışları, anlatımdaki mahir sıçrayışlarıyla Shirley Jackson’ın dehasını ortaya koyuyor; üstelik karşılaşacağınız en tuhaf ve cazip roman kahramanlarından biriyle, Merricat ile tanışmanızı sağlıyor. Merricat, onu mahvedecek hakikatlerin karşısında hayallerinin sayesinde dimdik duruyor, ne ki bazı hayaller, kabuslarla koyun koyuna uyuyor.
Bugün Stephen King’den Neil Gaiman’a değin pek çok çağdaş yazarın ilham kaynakları arasında andığı Shirley Jackson, Amerikan Gotiği’nin klasiklerinden sayılan Biz Hep Şatoda Yaşadık ile anlatıcı olarak ustalığını gözler önüne seriyor ve kız kardeşliğe dair unutulmayacak bir metne imza atıyor. Doğada hiçbir şey yoktan var olmuyor ve sarayların enkaza, hayallerin hezeyana dönmesi için bir an yetiyor; geriye kala kala biraz toz, belki biraz da kül kalıyor. En ölümcül zehirler, tıpkı en kuvvetli tılsımlar gibi insan yüreğinde büyüyor ve hiçbir yer, ama hiçbir yer insanın evi gibi olmuyor.
Casa bântuită
Shirley Jackson
Patru persoane au sosit la Hill House: doctorul Montague, un savant care caută dovezi solide legate de manifestările supranaturale; Theodora, asistenta sa drăguță și sensibilă; Luke, un aventurier și viitorul moștenitor al Hill House; și Eleanor, o tânără singuratică, fragilă, cu un trecut întunecat. Dar ceea ce la început pare să fie un experiment nevinovat, o întâlnire misterioasă cu niște fenomene inexplicabile, se dovedește rapid a fi o călătorie în cele mai cumplite coșmaruri ale celor patru și o investigație căreia mulți dintre ei s-ar putea să nu-i supraviețuiască.
Come Along With Me
Shirley Jackson
A haunting and psychologically driven collection from Shirley Jackson that includes her best-known story "The Lottery"
At last, Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" enters Penguin Classics, sixty-five years after it shocked America audiences and elicited the most responses of any piece in New Yorker history. In her gothic visions of small-town America, Jackson, the author of such masterworks as The Haunting of Hill House and We Have Always Lived in the Castle, turns an ordinary world into a supernatural nightmare. This eclectic collection goes beyond her horror writing, revealing the full spectrum of her literary genius. In addition to Come Along with Me, Jackson's unfinished novel about the quirky inner life of a lonely widow, it features sixteen short stories and three lectures she delivered during her last years.
Cuentos escogidos
Shirley Jackson
Una mujer pasa el día de su boda buscando frenéticamente a su futuro marido, otra hace un extraño viaje nocturno en autobús, un librero satisface la, en apariencia, inofensiva solicitud de un cliente. Y, en el cuento más celebrado de Shirley Jackson, los pobladores de una aldea se reúnen para oficiar un inquietante ritual. «La lotería», uno de los relatos más turbadores que se hayan escrito nunca y un ícono en la historia de la literatura norteamericana, encendió la polémica cuando se publicó por primera vez, en la revista The New Yorker. Este volumen presenta una selección de los cuentos de Shirley Jackson e incluye tres conferencias de la autora, una de las cuales dedicada, precisamente, al escándalo que supuso la publicación de su texto más conocido.
Cuentos oscuros
Shirley Jackson
Shirley Jackson, autora de obras maestras como La maldición de Hill House y Siempre hemos vivido en el castillo, firmó también numerosos relatos; no solo «La lotería» (1948), cuya célebre aparición en The New Yorker causó tanto revuelo y que, durante décadas, fue la única obra verdaderamente conocida de una autora por lo demás relegada, durante largo tiempo, a los rincones del «género» (llámese horror gótico o terror). Autora cuyo genio literario por fin aflora con la fuerza que merece ante lectores de todo tipo.
Esta selección, coeditada con la editorial Minúscula e ilustrada por Carmen Segovia —cuya singularidad al retratar situaciones y personajes oscuros con una paleta cálida le ha valido numerosas distinciones— reúne once cuentos que revelan una mirada penetrante sobre la oscuridad que permea la vida cotidiana, combinada con un talento peculiar para valerse de narradores poco fiables y crear personajes tan retorcidos como aparentemente ordinarios y hasta respetables.
Aquí los límites entre lo real y lo sobrenatural acaban por desdibujarse entre costumbres o rutinas diarias y aterradoras: una esposa modélica que oculta pensamientos homicidas, un ciudadano ejemplar que podría ser un asesino en serie… En el mundo de Shirley Jackson nada es lo que parece y no hay lugar seguro.
Dark Tales
Shirley Jackson
For the first time in one volume, a collection of Shirley Jackson's scariest stories, with a foreword by PEN/Hemingway Award winner Ottessa Moshfegh After the publication of her short story "The Lottery" in the New Yorker in 1948 received an unprecedented amount of attention, Shirley Jackson was quickly established as a master horror storyteller. This collection of classic and newly reprinted stories provides readers with more of her unsettling, dark tales, including the "The Possibility of Evil" and "The Summer People." In these deliciously dark stories, the daily commute turns into a nightmarish game of hide and seek, the loving wife hides homicidal thoughts and the concerned citizen might just be an infamous serial killer. In the haunting world of Shirley Jackson, nothing is as it seems and nowhere is safe, from the city streets to the crumbling country pile, and from the small-town apartment to the dark, dark woods. There's something sinister in suburbia.
For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
Hangsaman
Shirley Jackson
Hangsaman is Miss Jackson's second novel. The story is a simple one but the overtones are immediately present. "Natalie Waite who was seventeen years old but who felt that she had been truly conscious only since she was about fifteen lived in an odd corner of a world of sound and sight, past the daily voices of her father and mother and their incomprehensible actions." In a few graphic pages, the family is before us—Arnold Waite, a writer, egotistical and embittered; his wife, the complaining martyr; Bud, the younger brother who has not yet felt the need to establish his independence; and Natalie, in the nightmare of being seventeen.
The Sunday afternoon cocktail party, to which Arnold Waite has invited his literary friends and neighbors, serves to etch in the details of this family's life, and to draw Natalie into the vortex. The story concentrates on the next few critical months in Natalie's life, away at college, where each experience reproduces on a larger scale the crucial failure of her emotional life at home. With a mounting tension rising from character and situation as well as the particular magic of which Miss Jackson is master, the novel proceeds inexorably to the stinging melodrama of its conclusion. The bitter cruelty of the passage from adolescence to womanhood, of a sensitive and lonely girl caught in a world not of her own devising, is a theme well suited to Miss Jackson's brilliant talent.
Just an Ordinary Day
Shirley Jackson
The stories in this edition represent the great diversity of her work, from humor to her shocking explorations of the human psyche. The tales range, chronologically, from the writings of her college days and residence in Greenwich Village in the early 1940s, to the unforgettably chilling stories from the period just before her death. They provide an exciting overview of the evolution of her craft through a progression of forms and styles, and add significantly to the body of her published work.
Just an Ordinary Day is a testament to how large a talent Shirley Jackson had and to the depth, breadth, and complexity of her writing. Though this remarkable literary life was cut short, Jackson clearly established a unique voice that has won a permanent place in the canon of outstanding American literature, and remains a powerful influence on generations of readers and writers.
From the Trade Paperback edition.
Just an Ordinary Day: Stories
Shirley Jackson
The stories in this edition represent the great diversity of her work, from humor to her shocking explorations of the human psyche. The tales range, chronologically, from the writings of her college days and residence in Greenwich Village in the early 1940s, to the unforgettably chilling stories from the period just before her death. They provide an exciting overview of the evolution of her craft through a progression of forms and styles, and add significantly to the body of her published work.
Just an Ordinary Day is a testament to how large a talent Shirley Jackson had and to the depth, breadth, and complexity of her writing. Though this remarkable literary life was cut short, Jackson clearly established a unique voice that has won a permanent place in the canon of outstanding American literature, and remains a powerful influence on generations of readers and writers.
From the Trade Paperback edition.
Just an Ordinary Day: The Uncollected Stories
Shirley Jackson
Acclaimed in her own time for her short story 'The Lottery' and her novel The Haunting of Hill House—classics ranking with the work of Edgar Allan Poe—Shirley Jackson blazed a path for contemporary writers with her explorations of evil, madness, and cruelty.
Soon after her untimely death in 1965, Jackson’s children discovered a treasure trove of previously unpublished and uncollected stories, many of which are brought together in this remarkable collection. Here are tales of torment, psychological aberration, and the macabre, as well as those that display her lighter touch with humorous scenes of domestic life.
Reflecting the range and complexity of Jackson’s talent, Just an Ordinary Day reaffirms her enduring influence and celebrates her singular voice, rich with magic and resonance.
La lotería
Shirley Jackson
"La lotería", uno de los relatos más espeluznantes del siglo XX, fue una absoluta sensación cuando se publicó por primera vez en 1948. Considerado una obra clásica de ficción breve, se trata de una historia extraordinaria de suspenso que con precisión nos muestra lo escalofriante y lo mundano. Este volumen recoge una serie de relatos extraños y penetrantes sobre la cara oscura de la naturaleza humana: historias de locura, de amores perdidos y de terrores, cada una de las cuales constituye una obra maestra.
La lotería y otros cuentos
Shirley Jackson
“La lotería”, uno de los relatos más espeluznantes del siglo XX, fue una absoluta sensación cuando se publicó por primera vez en 1948. Considerado una obra clásica de ficción breve, se trata de una historia extraordinaria de suspenso que con precisión nos muestra lo escalofriante y lo mundano.
Este volumen recoge un total 25 cuentos extraños y penetrantes sobre la cara oscura de la naturaleza humana: historias de locura, de amores perdidos y de terrores, cada uno de las cuales constituye una obra maestra; entre los que se encuentran “El muñeco”, “La bruja”, “El diente” y “La columna de sal”.
Otros autores han opinado:
"El gran don de Shirley Jackson no radica en crear un mundo de terror y fantasía, sino en evidenciar lo grotesco de la vida cotidiana. Estos relatos son tan sórdidos porque lo grotesco nace de lo cotidiano y vuelve constantemente... hasta que dejamos de reconocernos." -Elizabeth Janeway-
La lotteria
Shirley Jackson
Il racconto di Shirley Jackson intitolato La lotteria ricorda da vicino, per la fama che lo circonda, la famigerata lettura radiofonica della Guerra dei Mondi di Orson Welles. Fama non immeritata, giacché la pubblicazione sul "New Yorker", nel 1949, scatenò un pandemonio. Molti lo presero alla lettera, reagendo all'istante e poi per lungo tempo con missive indignate o atterrite alla redazione. Certe cose non potevano, non dovevano succedere. Eppure la storia si presenta in tutta innocenza quale pura e semplice descrizione della lotteria che si svolge nell'atmosfera pastorale, quasi idilliaca, di un villaggio del New England in un luminoso mattino di giugno, come ogni anno da tempo immemore. Ma giunto al termine di questo racconto, come degli altri che compongono l'intensa silloge qui proposta, il lettore scoprirà da sé, in un crescendo di "brividi sommessi e progressivi" - come diceva Dorothy Parker - che cosa li rende dei classici del terrore. Secondo un altro illustre ammiratore della Jackson, oltre che maestro del genere, Stephen King, lo sono perché "finiscono con una svolta che porta dritto in un vicolo buio".
La Maison hantée
Shirley Jackson
Construite par un riche industriel au XIXe siècle, Hill House est une monstruosité architecturale, labyrinthique et ténébreuse, qui n'est plus habitée par ses propriétaires. On la dit hantée. Fascine par les phénomènes paranormaux, le docteur Montague veut mener une enquête et sélectionne des sujets susceptibles de réagir au surnaturel. C'est ainsi qu'Eleanor arrive à Hill House avec ses compagnons.
L'expérience peut commencer. Mais derrière les murs biscornus, les fantômes de la maison veillent et les cauchemars se profilent...
La maldición de Hill House
Shirley Jackson
Cuatro personajes llegan a un viejo y laberíntico caserón conocido como Hill House. Son el doctor Montague, un estudioso de lo oculto que busca pruebas de fenómenos psíquicos en casas encantadas, y tres personas a quienes el doctor ha reclutado para llevar a cabo un experimento. A pesar de las reticencias de su familia, Eleanor, una joven algo atormentada y de pasado infeliz, acabará formando parte de la singular comitiva. Los otros son Theodora, con quien Eleanor establece un fuerte vínculo inicial, y Luke, el heredero de la casa. Pronto todos deberán enfrentarse a situaciones que están más allá de su comprensión. Hill House parece estar preparándose para escoger a uno de ellos y hacerlo suyo para siempre. Llevada dos veces al cine e inspiración de una reciente serie televisiva, "La maldición de Hill House" es una de las novelas más famosas de Shirley Jackson y una de las principales obras de terror del siglo XX.
La meridiana
Shirley Jackson
Una famiglia che pullula di svitati, un codazzo di parenti e amici e servitori, una villa monumentale in mezzo a un parco. Sono gli ingredienti di questo travolgente romanzo di Shirley Jackson, che si apre con i protagonisti – di tutte le età e affetti da ogni forma di mania – di ritorno dal funerale del figlio di Mrs. Halloran, che, dice serafica la piccola Fancy, la nonna ha buttato giù dalle scale: per tenersi stretta la villa. Come se non bastasse, poco dopo zia Fanny riferisce di aver avuto un incontro in giardino con il padre, defunto da tempo, il quale le ha annunciato che la fine del mondo è imminente e che loro saranno gli unici a salvarsi. E non è finita: qualcuno va a riferire la notizia in città, ed ecco presentarsi la delegazione locale dei Veri Credenti, i quali non possono che condividere la logica apocalittica, ma, siccome sono convinti che a salvarli ci penseranno gli alieni, sono venuti a chiedere di farli atterrare nel parco. E noi lettori, ormai completamente in balìa di una Jackson in stato di grazia, che dispensa a piene mani uno humour che si potrebbe definire vitreo, ci lasceremo trascinare da un crescendo di follie e sorprese – sino, letteralmente, alla fine (del mondo?).
La ragazza scomparsa
Shirley Jackson
Il mondo di Shirley Jackson in miniatura: tre superbi racconti, uniti dal brivido di scoprire che l'orrore di cui leggi sta capitando a te.
Contiene:
- La ragazza scomparsa (The Missing Girl)
- Viaggio con signora (Journey with a Lady)
- Incubo (Nightmare)
La strega
Shirley Jackson
Tre dei racconti qui riuniti hanno come protagoniste quelle creaturine infide, pericolose, enigmatiche che Shirley Jackson conosceva molto bene per aver cresciuto quattro «demoni», come chiamava – scherzosamente ma non troppo – i figli. Un bambino che, viaggiando in treno, vede streghe ovunque, e non è detto che non abbia ragione. Una ragazza che, sotto gli occhi di un presunto adulto un po’ alticcio, sfoggia un sapere e una saggezza apocalittici, mentre nella stanza accanto gli invitati a una festa sproloquiano sul futuro del mondo: «Non credo proprio che abbia molto futuro,» sentenzia con placido e inquietante distacco «almeno per com’è adesso ... Se quando lei era giovane la gente si fosse spaventata davvero, oggi non saremmo messi così male». E uno scolaretto che ne combina di tutti i colori, forse invisibile ma non per questo assente, come diceva sant’Agostino dei defunti, benché il marmocchio in questione sia vivo e vegeto. Tre boîtes à surprise con le quali Shirley Jackson suscita, a partire dal candore arcano dei ragazzi, sorrisi e brividi glaciali in egual misura. Senza rinunciare a condurci, al seguito di una donna che deve farsi estrarre un molare, nel suo territorio d’elezione: quella zona d’ombra ai confini della follia dove le cose note perdono i loro connotati familiari e appaiono estranee e perturbanti, dove un luciferino sconosciuto, materializzatosi dal nulla al nostro fianco, può prenderci per mano e, in un battito di ciglia, portarci a correre sulla sabbia calda, mentre le onde «tintinnano come campanelli sulla spiaggia» e «i flauti suonano tutta la notte».
Let Me Tell You: New Stories, Essays, and Other Writings
Shirley Jackson
Named one of the best books of the year by NPR • From the renowned author of “The Lottery” and The Haunting of Hill House, a spectacular new volume of previously unpublished and uncollected stories, essays, and other writings.
Features “Family Treasures,” nominated for the Edgar Award for Best Short Story
Shirley Jackson is one of the most important American writers of the last hundred years. Since her death in 1965, her place in the landscape of twentieth-century fiction has grown only more exalted.
As we approach the centenary of her birth comes this astonishing compilation of fifty-six pieces—more than forty of which have never been published before. Two of Jackson’s children co-edited this volume, culling through the vast archives of their mother’s papers at the Library of Congress, selecting only the very best for inclusion.
Let Me Tell You brings together the deliciously eerie short stories Jackson is best known for, along with frank, inspiring lectures on writing; comic essays about her large, boisterous family; and whimsical drawings. Jackson’s landscape here is most frequently domestic: dinner parties and bridge, household budgets and homeward-bound commutes, children’s games and neighborly gossip. But this familiar setting is also her most subversive: She wields humor, terror, and the uncanny to explore the real challenges of marriage, parenting, and community—the pressure of social norms, the veins of distrust in love, the constant lack of time and space.
For the first time, this collection showcases Shirley Jackson’s radically different modes of writing side by side. Together they show her to be a magnificent storyteller, a sharp, sly humorist, and a powerful feminist.
This volume includes a foreword by the celebrated literary critic and Jackson biographer Ruth Franklin.
Life Among the Savages
Shirley Jackson
Shirley Jackson, author of the classic short story "The Lottery", was known for her terse, haunting prose. But the writer possessed another side, one which is delightfully exposed in this hilariously charming memoir of her family's life in rural Vermont. Fans of Please Don't Eat the Daisies, Cheaper by the Dozen, and anything Erma Bombeck ever wrote will find much to recognize in Shirley Jackson's home and neighborhood: children who won't behave, cars that won't start, furnaces that break down, a pugnacious corner bully, household help that never stays, and a patient, capable husband who remains lovingly oblivious to the many thousands of things mothers and wives accomplish every single day.
"Our house," writes Jackson, "is old, noisy, and full. When we moved into it we had two children and about five thousand books; I expect that when we finally overflow and move out again we will have perhaps twenty children and easily half a million books." Jackson's literary talents are in evidence everywhere, as is her trenchant, unsentimental wit. Yet there is no mistaking the happiness and love in these pages, which are crowded with the raucous voices of an extraordinary family living a wonderfully ordinary life.
L'incubo di Hill House
Shirley Jackson
Chiunque abbia visto qualche film del terrore con al centro una costruzione abitata da sinistre presenze si sarà trovato a chiedersi almeno una volta perché le vittime di turno (giovani coppie, gruppi di studenti, scrittori alla vana ricerca di ispirazione) non optino, prima che sia troppo tardi, per la soluzione più semplice – e cioè non escano dalla stessa porta dalla quale sono entrati, allontanandosi senza voltarsi indietro. Bene, a tale domanda, meno oziosa di quanto potrebbe parere, questo romanzo di Shirley Jackson – il suo più noto – fornisce una risposta, forse la prima. Non è infatti la fragile, sola, indifesa Eleanor Vance a scegliere la Casa, dilatando l’esperimento paranormale in cui l’ha coinvolta l’inquietante professor Montague molto oltre i suoi presunti limiti. È piuttosto la Casa – con la sua torre buia, le porte che sembrano aprirsi da sole, le improvvise folate di gelo – a scegliere, per sempre, Eleanor Vance. E a imprigionare insieme a lei il lettore, che tenterà invano di fuggire da una costruzione romanzesca senza crepe, in cui – come ha scritto il più celebre discepolo della Jackson, Stephen King – «ogni svolta porta dritta in un vicolo buio».
Lizzie
Shirley Jackson
Opera della maestra del thriller nero, venerata da Stephen King, Lizzie è il primo grande romanzo delle personalità multiple. La protagonista, Elizabeth Richmond, ventitré anni, i tratti insieme eleganti e anonimi di una «vera gentildonna» della provincia americana, non sembra avere altri progetti che quello di aspettare «la propria dipartita stando il meno male possibile». Sotto un'ingannevole tranquillità, infatti, si agita in lei un disagio allarmante che si traduce in ricorrenti emicranie, vertigini e strane amnesie. Un disagio a lungo senza nome, finché un medico geniale e ostinato, il dottor Wright, dopo aver sottoposto la giovane a lunghe sedute ipnotiche, rivelerà la presenza di tre personalità sovrapposte e conflittuali: oltre alla stessa Elizabeth, l'amabile e socievole Beth e il suo negativo fotografico Betsy, «maschera crudele e deforme» che vorrebbe fagocitare e distruggere – con il suo «sorriso laido e grossolano» e i suoi modi sadici, insolenti e volgari – le altre due.
È solo l'inizio di un inabissamento che assomiglierà, più a che un percorso clinico coronato da un successo terapeutico, a una discesa amorale e spietata nelle battaglie angosciose di un Io diviso, apparentemente impossibile da ricomporre: tanto che il dottor Wright sentirà scosse le fondamenta non solo della sua dottrina, ma della sua stessa visione del rapporto tra l'identità e la realtà.
Louisa, Please Come Home
Shirley Jackson
19-year-old Louisa Tether runs away from her family the day before her sister’s wedding.
Three years later, after the searching has died down, she decides to respond to her mother’s annual plea, and return home.
Maison hantée
Shirley Jackson
Une maison est comme un visage. Quand elle exhale l'arrogance et la haine, quand elle est sans cesse à l'affût, elle ne peut être que dangereuse. Et Hill House semblait s'être érigée seule, selon ses propres plans. Il n'y avait pas en elle la moindre place pour l'homme, ni pour l'amour, ni pour l'espoir.
Elle était l'abomination, la mort. Elle m'attendait, maléfique et patiente...
Nawiedzony Dom na Wzgorzu
Shirley Jackson
It is the story of four seekers who arrive at a notoriously unfriendly pile called Hill House: Dr. Montague, an occult scholar looking for solid evidence of a "haunting"; Theodora, the lighthearted assistant; Eleanor, a friendless, fragile young woman well acquainted with poltergeists; and Luke, the future heir of Hill House. At first, their stay seems destined to be merely a spooky encounter with inexplicable phenomena. But Hill House is gathering its powers—and soon it will choose one of them to make its own.
Nawiedzony dom na wzgórzu
Shirley Jackson
Do starego, mrocznego i owianego złą sławą domu na wzgórzu przybywają: doktor Montague – znawca okultyzmu, szukający żelaznych dowodów na istnienie zjawisk paranormalnych, jego śliczna asystentka, Eleanor – młoda kobieta posiadająca sporą wiedzę na temat duchów, a także Luke – przyszły spadkobierca rezydencji. Z początku wydaje się, że będą mieć do czynienia jedynie z niewytłumaczalnymi odgłosami i zamykającymi się samoistnie drzwiami. Jednak tak naprawdę mroczny i tajemniczy dom cały czas gromadzi siły, by wybrać spośród śmiałków swoją ofiarę.
Nous avons toujours vécu au château
Shirley Jackson
« Je m’appelle Mary Katherine Blackwood. J’ai dix-huit ans, et je vis avec ma sœur, Constance. J’ai souvent pensé qu’avec un peu de chance, j’aurais pu naître loup-garou, car à ma main droite comme à la gauche, l’index est aussi long que le majeur, mais j’ai dû me contenter de ce que j’avais. Je n’aime pas me laver, je n’aime pas les chiens, et je n’aime pas le bruit. J’aime bien ma sœur Constance, et Richard Plantagenêt, et l’amanite phalloïde, le champignon qu’on appelle le calice de la mort. Tous les autres membres de ma famille sont décédés. »
Ainsi commence le chef-d’œuvre de la romancière américaine, Shirley Jackson (1916-1965), également auteur de la célèbre nouvelle La Loterie et du roman Maison hantée, porté à l'écran par Robert Wise (La Maison du diable).
Novels & Stories: The Lottery / The Haunting of Hill House / We Have Always Lived in the Castle / Other Stories and Sketches
Shirley Jackson
“The world of Shirley Jackson is eerie and unforgettable,” writes A. M. Homes. “It is a place where things are not what they seem; even on a morning that is sunny and clear there is always the threat of darkness looming, of things taking a turn for the worse.” Jackson’s characters–mostly unloved daughters in search of a home, a career, a family of their own–chase what appears to be a harmless dream until, without warning, it turns on its heel to seize them by the throat. We are moved by these characters’ dreams, for they are the dreams of love and acceptance shared by us all. We are shocked when their dreams become nightmares, and terrified by Jackson’s suggestion that there are unseen powers–“demons” both subconscious and supernatural–malevolently conspiring against human happiness.
In this volume Joyce Carol Oates, our leading practitioner of the contemporary Gothic, presents the essential works of Shirley Jackson, the novels and stories that, from the early 1940s through the mid-1960s, wittily remade the genre of psychological horror for an alienated, postwar America. She opens with The Lottery (1949), Jackson’s only collection of short fiction, whose disquieting title story–one of the most widely anthologized tales of the twentieth century–has entered American folklore. Also among these early works are “The Daemon Lover,” a story Oates praises as “deeper, more mysterious, and more disturbing than ‘The Lottery,’” and “Charles,” the hilarious sketch that launched Jackson’s secondary career as a domestic humorist.
Here too are Jackson’s masterly short novels The Haunting of Hill House (1959), the tale of an achingly empathetic young woman chosen by a haunted house to be its new tenant, and We Have Always Lived in the Castle (1962), the unrepentant confessions of Miss Merricat Blackwood, a cunning adolescent who has gone to quite unusual lengths to preserve her ideal of family happiness. Rounding out the volume are 21 other stories and sketches that showcase Jackson in all her many modes, and the essay “Biography of a Story,” Jackson’s acidly funny account of the public reception of “The Lottery,” which provoked more mail from readers of The New Yorker than any contribution before or since.
O Homem da Forca
Shirley Jackson
Natalie Waite tem dezessete anos e só pensa em sair logo da casa dos pais e entrar na universidade; ela sonha em ser livre. Seu pai é um escritor cheio de si, bastante dominador quando se trata de Natalie e sua mãe. Contudo, quando a menina finalmente consegue ir para a faculdade, as coisas não se desenrolam como o planejado e ela não encontra a felicidade que tanto desejava.
Pouco a pouco, todas as certezas de Natalie evaporam, e ela não é mais capaz de compreender onde termina a realidade e onde começa sua sombria alucinação.
Inspirado pelo desaparecimento de uma estudante universitária que vivia perto da casa de Shirley Jackson, O Homem da Forca conta uma história assombrosa e inquietante sobre loucura e obsessão.
"Shirley Jackson é mestre na arte da escrita envolvente." – Dorothy Parker
"Ler este livro é como entrar em um labirinto escuro apenas para descobrir que você já esteve nele, e que o romance apenas despertou algo que você tentou esquecer durante toda a sua vida." – The Rumpus
The Sunday afternoon cocktail party, to which Arnold Waite has invited his literary friends and neighbors, serves to etch in the details of this family's life, and to draw Natalie into the vortex. The story concentrates on the next few critical months in Natalie's life, away at college, where each experience reproduces on a larger scale the crucial failure of her emotional life at home. With a mounting tension rising from character and situation as well as the particular magic of which Miss Jackson is master, the novel proceeds inexorably to the stinging melodrama of its conclusion. The bitter cruelty of the passage from adolescence to womanhood, of a sensitive and lonely girl caught in a world not of her own devising, is a theme well suited to Miss Jackson's brilliant talent.
Paranoia
Shirley Jackson
Un giorno, a metà degli anni Novanta, Laurence Jackson Hyman, il figlio maggiore di Shirley Jackson, apre la porta di casa e – sorpresa – si trova davanti una scatola di cartone senza traccia di mittente. Dentro, immediatamente riconoscibili dai fogli di carta gialla e dai caratteri della sua Royal, una messe di scritti inediti della madre, morta ormai da trent'anni. Da quell'imprevista cornucopia, e dalle successive ricerche nel suo Fondo presso la Biblioteca del Congresso di Washington, scaturirà nel 2015 un libro sorprendente, "Let Me Tell You", definito «un revival di "Ai confini della realtà"». I molti e appassionati lettori di Shirley Jackson – che amava dire di essere una strega – saranno così felici di trovare, nella scelta che qui offriamo, comicissimi sketch familiari, stranianti conferenze sull'arte dello scrivere, nonché alcuni dei racconti più inquietanti che «la maestra di Stephen King» abbia mai scritto. E di provare di nuovo quell'arcano sentimento che proprio lei ci ha fatto conoscere così bene: l'angoscia che si insinua in noi nell'intravedere la presenza del Male.
Raising Demons
Shirley Jackson
'Our new house was waiting for us, eager, expectant, and empty'
Shirley Jackson skewered the trials of domestic life in 1950s America with wry wit and uncanny precision. In this sequel to Life Among the Savages , her four offspring have now grown into fully-fledged demons. As their house starts to burst at the seams, the Jackson clan somehow manage (without really planning it) to move into a larger home, only to take the chaos - absent furniture, vanishing children, misbehaving refrigerators, an avalanche of books - right along with them.
Sempre hem viscut al castell
Shirley Jackson
La Merricat Blackwood és una nena solitària i amb molta fantasia que viu al casalot familiar amb la seva germana gran, la Constance, i el seu oncle Julian, un home vell i minusvàlid que es mou en cadira de rodes. La Merricat passa les hores vagant pel jardí, enterrant tresors, jugant amb el seu gat Jonàs i somiant amb viatjar a la lluna i començar una vida nova. I, des que fa sis anys va morir la resta de la seva família, una de les seves obsessions és protegir la seva germana, i la casa, de la xafarderia, l’hostilitat i el rebuig agressiu de la gent del poble. Els dies transcorren tranquil·lament enmig d’una alegria plàcida i solitària fins que una visita inesperada es planta al bell mig del jardí i s’instal·la al casalot. Aterrida, només la Merricat aconsegueix veure-hi el perill; aquesta visita, i la presència constant i abassegadora del passat que no se’n va mai, capgirarà les seves vides definitivament.
‘Una escriptora impressionant … Si encara no l’heu llegit, us esteu perdent una experiència meravellosa’, Neil Gaiman
‘Les històries de Shirley Jackson són de les més aterridores que s’hagin escrit mai’, Donna Tartt.
‘El món de Shirley Jackson és inquietant i inoblidable’, A. M. Homes.
‘Shirley Jackson és una de les escriptores més idiosincràtiques, i inimitables, l’obra de la qual exerceix sobre el lector un encanteri etern’, Joyce Carol Oates.
Sempre Vivemos no Castelo
Shirley Jackson
«Chamo-me Mary Katherine Blackwood. Tenho dezoito anos e vivo com a minha irmã Constance. É frequente pensar que se tivesse tido um pouco de sorte poderia ter nascido lobisomem, porque o anular e o dedo médio das minhas mãos têm o mesmo comprimento, mas tive de me contentar com aquilo que tenho. Não gosto de me lavar, nem de cães ou barulho. Gosto da minha irmã Constance, de Ricardo Coração de Leão e do Amanita phalloides, o cogumelo da morte. Todas as outras pessoas da minha família estão mortas.» Assim inicia Shirley Jackson o seu último romance, de 1962, considerado pela crítica uma das obras-primas da literatura norte-americana. Neste, atinge o auge a sua perícia narrativa de tornar real ao leitor um mundo inverosímil, conseguindo ao mesmo tempo convencê-lo de que a loucura e o mal habitam os cenários mais comuns.
Siempre hemos vivido en el castillo
Shirley Jackson
"Me llamo Mary Katherine Blackwood. Tengo dieciocho años y vivo con mi hermana Constance. A menudo pienso que con un poco de suerte podría haber sido una mujer lobo, porque mis dedos medio y anular son igual de largos, pero he tenido que contentarme con lo que soy. No me gusta lavarme, ni los perros, ni el ruido. Me gusta mi hermana Constance, y Ricardo Plantagenet, y la Amanita phalloides, la oronja mortal. El resto de mi familia ha muerto." Con estas palabras se presenta Merricat, la protagonista de "Siempre hemos vivido en el castillo", que lleva una vida solitaria en una gran casa apartada del pueblo. Allí pasa las horas recluida con su bella hermana mayor y su anciano tío Julian, que va en silla de ruedas y escribe y reescribe sus memorias. La buena cocina, la jardinería y el gato Jonas concentran la atención de las jóvenes. En el hogar de los Blackwood los días discurrirían apacibles si no fuera porque algo ocurrió, allí mismo, en el comedor, seis años atrás.
The Bird's Nest
Shirley Jackson
Elizabeth Richmond is almost too quiet to be believed, with no friends, no parents, and a job that leaves her strangely unnoticed. But soon she starts to behave in ways she can neither control nor understand, to the increasing horror of her doctor, and the humiliation of her self-centred aunt. As a tormented Elizabeth becomes two people, then three, then four, each wilder and more wicked than the last, a battle of wills threatens to destroy the girl and all who surround her. The Bird's Nest is a macabre journey into who we are, and how close we sometimes come to the brink of madness.
The Bus
Shirley Jackson
Archived: Does not meet catalog guidelines
The Classic Collection of Shirley Jackson: Complete Novels, Best Stories
Shirley Jackson
Shirley Hardie Jackson was an American writer known primarily for her works of horror and mystery. Over the duration of her writing career, which spanned over two decades, she composed six novels, two memoirs, and more than 200 short stories.The Road Through the WallHangsamanThe Bird's NestThe SundialThe Haunting of Hill HouseWe Have Always Lived in the Castle The Lottery and Other Stories
The Daemon Lover
Shirley Jackson
A short story about a woman searching for her fiancé.
The Haunting of Hill House
Shirley Jackson
It is the story of four seekers who arrive at a notoriously unfriendly pile called Hill House: Dr. Montague, an occult scholar looking for solid evidence of a "haunting"; Theodora, the lighthearted assistant; Eleanor, a friendless, fragile young woman well acquainted with poltergeists; and Luke, the future heir of Hill House. At first, their stay seems destined to be merely a spooky encounter with inexplicable phenomena. But Hill House is gathering its powers—and soon it will choose one of them to make its own.
The Haunting of Hill House merge
Shirley Jackson
In celebration of the Shirley Jackson centennial, a Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition of the greatest haunted house story ever written
First published in 1959, Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House has been hailed as a perfect work of unnerving terror. It is the story of four seekers who arrive at a notoriously unfriendly pile called Hill House: Dr. Montague, an occult scholar looking for solid evidence of a “haunting”; Theodora, his lighthearted assistant; Eleanor, a friendless, fragile young woman well acquainted with poltergeists; and Luke, the future heir of Hill House. At first, their stay seems destined to be merely a spooky encounter with inexplicable phenomena. But Hill House is gathering its powers—and soon it will choose one of them to make its own.
"The Haunting of Hill House Novel by Shirley Jackson"
Shirley Jackson
Archived: Does not meet catalog guidelines
The Letters of Shirley Jackson
Shirley Jackson
A bewitchingly brilliant collection of never-before-published letters from the renowned author of "The Lottery" and The Haunting of Hill House
Shirley Jackson is one of the most important American authors of the last hundred years and among America's greatest chroniclers of the female experience. This extraordinary compilation of personal correspondence has all the hallmarks of Jackson's beloved fiction: flashes of the uncanny in the domestic, sparks of horror in the quotidian, and the veins of humor that run through good times and bad.
"I am having a fine time doing a novel with my left hand and a long story—with as many levels as Grand Central Station—with my right hand, stirring chocolate pudding with a spoon held in my teeth, and tuning the television with both feet."
Written over the course of nearly three decades, from Jackson's college years to six days before her early death at the age of forty-eight, these letters become the autobiography Shirley Jackson never wrote. As well as being a bestselling author, Jackson spent much of her adult life as a mother of four in Vermont, and the landscape here is often the everyday: raucous holidays and trips to the dentist, overdue taxes and frayed lines of Christmas lights, new dogs, and new babies. But in recounting these events to family, friends, and colleagues, she turns them into remarkable stories: entertaining, revealing, and wise. At the same time, many of these letters provide fresh insight into the genesis and progress of Jackson's writing over nearly three decades.
"The novel is getting sadder. It's always such a strange feeling—I know something's going to happen, and those poor people in the book don't; they just go blithely on their ways."
Compiled and edited by her elder son, Laurence Jackson Hyman, in consultation with Jackson scholar Bernice M. Murphy and featuring Jackson's own witty line drawings, this intimate collection holds the beguiling prism of Shirley Jackson—writer and reader, mother and daughter, neighbor and wife—up to the light.
The Lottery
Shirley Jackson
In a small American town, the local residents are abuzz with excitement and nervousness when they wake on the morning of the twenty-seventh of June. Everything has been prepared for the town’s annual tradition—a lottery in which every family must participate, and no one wants to win. “The Lottery” stands out as one of the most famous short stories in American literary history. Originally published in The New Yorker, the author immediately began receiving letters from readers who demanded an explanation of the story’s meaning. “The Lottery” has been adapted for stage, television, radio and film.
The Lottery and Other Stories
Shirley Jackson
The Lottery, one of the most terrifying stories written in this century, created a sensation when it was first published in The New Yorker. "Power and haunting," and "nights of unrest" were typical reader responses. This collection, the only one to appear during Shirley Jackson's lifetime, unites "The Lottery:" with twenty-four equally unusual stories. Together they demonstrate Jackson's remarkable range--from the hilarious to the truly horrible--and power as a storyteller.
The Lottery and Other Stories by Shirley Jackson: A Short Story
Shirley Jackson
The Lottery, one of the most terrifying stories written in this century, created a sensation when it was first published in The New Yorker. "Power and haunting," and "nights of unrest" were typical reader responses. This collection, the only one to appear during Shirley Jackson's lifetime, unites "The Lottery:" with twenty-four equally unusual stories. Together they demonstrate Jackson's remarkable range--from the hilarious to the truly horrible--and power as a storyteller.
The Lottery and Other Stories; The Haunting of Hill House; We Have Always Lived in the Castle
Shirley Jackson
"The world of Shirley Jackson is eerie and unforgettable," writes A. M. Homes. "It is a place where things are not what they seem; even on a morning that is sunny and clear there is always the threat of darkness looming, of things taking a turn for the worse." Jackson's characters-mostly unloved daughters in search of a home, a career, a family of their own-chase what appears to be a harmless dream until, without warning, it turns on its heel to seize them by the throat. We are moved by these characters' dreams, for they are the dreams of love and acceptance shared by us all. We are shocked when their dreams become nightmares, and terrified by Jackson's suggestion that there are unseen powers-"demons" both subconscious and supernatural-malevolently conspiring against human happiness. In this volume Joyce Carol Oates, our leading practitioner of the contemporary Gothic, presents the essential works of Shirley Jackson, the novels and stories that, from the early 1940s through the mid-1960s, wittily remade the genre of psychological horror for an alienated, postwar America. She opens with "The Lottery" (1949), Jackson's only collection of short fiction, whose disquieting title story-one of the most widely anthologized tales of the 20th century-has entered American folklore. Also among these early works are "The Daemon Lover," a story Oates praises as "deeper, more mysterious, and more disturbing than 'The Lottery, ' " and "Charles," the hilarious sketch that launched Jackson's secondary career as a domestic humorist. Here too are Jackson's masterly short novels: "The Haunting of Hill House" (1959), the tale of an achingly empathetic young woman chosen by a haunted house to be its new tenant, and "We Have Always Lived in the Castle" (1962), the unrepentant confessions of Miss Merricat Blackwood, a cunning adolescent who has gone to quite unusual lengths to preserve her ideal of family happiness. Rounding out the volume are 21 other stories and sketches that showcase Jackson in all her many modes, and the essay "Biography of a Story," Jackson's acidly funny account of the public reception of "The Lottery," which provoked more mail from readers of "The New Yorker" than any contribution before or since.
The Lottery and Seven Other Short Stories
Shirley Jackson
Who can forget the first time they heard the story? Considered one of the masterpieces of American literature, "The Lottery" created a sensation when it was first published in The New Yorker . Since then it has become one of the most anthologized stories in American literature. Powerful and haunting, subtle and horrifying, the tale demonstrates Shirley Jackson's mastery of storytelling. This one-of-a-kind audio collection, from the only anthology published during the author's lifetime, unites "The Lottery" with seven other equally unique stories. Jackson reveals the hidden evils of the human mind and society in these compelling stories. Carol Stewart, an award-winning reader, combines her extensive background as a voice talent for audiobooks with her deft sense of delivery, tone, and pacing to illuminate Jackson's uncommon characters and storytelling artistry.
The Missing Girl
Shirley Jackson
' "Of course, no one would want to say anything about a girl like this that's missing..." '
Malice, paranoia and creeping dread lie beneath the surface of ordinary American life in these chilling miniature masterworks of unease.
Contains:
- The Missing Girl
- Journey with a Lady
- Nightmare
The Possibility of Evil
Shirley Jackson
"The Possibility of Evil" is about an old lady named Miss Strangeworth. She treasures her roses, passed down from her grandmother, and those roses are her pride. In order to keep a town, which she thinks is hers, she tries to keep the town from becoming evil by sending letters with messages based on gossip to the townspeople about events in their lives that may be troubling.
The Road Through the Wall
Shirley Jackson
In Pepper Street, an attractive suburban neighbourhood filled with bullies and egotistical bigots, the feelings of the inhabitants are shallow and selfish: what can a neighbour do to triumph over another neighbour, what may be won from a friend? One child stands alone in her goodness: little Caroline Desmond, kind, sweet and gentle, and the pride of her family. But the malice and self-absorption of the people of Pepper Street lead to a terrible event that will destroy the community of which they are so proud.
Exposing the murderous cruelty of children, and the blindness and selfishness of adults, Shirley Jackson reveals the ugly truth behind a 'perfect' world.
The Story We Used to Tell
Shirley Jackson
A recently widowed woman vanishes overnight.
Content advisory: violence, death
“The Story We Used to Tell” is from DARK TALES by Shirley Jackson, published by Penguin Classics, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC.
Listening Time: 33 minutes
The Summer People
Shirley Jackson
'The Summer People' is a rather creepy and mysterious short story by author Shirley Jackson. A New York City couple encounter sinister resistance when they decide to stay at their summer cottage past Labor Day.
The Sundial
Shirley Jackson
In The Sundial Shirley Jackson, author of We Have Always Lived in the Castle, blends family politics and apocalyptic terror to create a disturbing world of sinister relations and the macabre.
Mrs Halloran has inherited the great Halloran house on the death of her son, much to the disgust of her daughter-in-law, the delight of her wicked granddaughter and the confusion of the rest of the household. But when the original owner - long dead - arrives to announce the world is ending and only the house and its occupants will be saved, they find themselves in a nightmare of strange marble statues, mysterious house guests and the beautiful, unsettling Halloran sundial which seems to be at the centre of it all.
Shirley Jackson's chilling tales have the power to unsettle and terrify unlike any other. She was born in California in 1916. When her short story The Lottery was first published in The New Yorker in 1948, readers were so horrified they sent her hate mail; it has since become one of the greatest American stories of all time. Her first novel, The Road Through the Wall, was published in the same year and was followed by five more: Hangsaman, The Bird's Nest, The Sundial, The Haunting of Hill House and We Have Always Lived in the Castle, widely seen as her masterpiece. Shirley Jackson died in her sleep at the age of 48.
'The world of Shirley Jackson is eerie and unforgettable ... It is a place where things are not what they seem; even on a morning that is sunny and clear there is always the threat of darkness looming, of things taking a turn for the worse' A. M. Homes
'Shirley Jackson is unparalleled as a leader in the field of beautifully written, quiet, cumulative shudders' Dorothy Parker
'Shirley Jackson's stories are among the most terrifying ever written' Donna Tartt
The Tooth
Shirley Jackson
Including her iconic tale The Lottery, The Tooth brings together a short selection of Shirley Jackson's most sinister stories. "Her stories are among the most terrifying ever written". (Donna Tartt). 'Her tooth, which had brought her here unerringly, seemed now the only part of her to have any identity. It seemed to have had its picture taken without her; it was the important creature which must be recorded and examined and gratified; she was only its unwilling vehicle...' The creeping unease of lives squandered and the bloody glee of lives lost is chillingly captured in these five tales of casual cruelty by a master of the short story. Portraying insanity, disturbing encounters, troubling children and a sinister lottery, Shirley Jackson's work has an unmatched power to unnerve and unsettle. Shirley Jackson was born in California in 1916. When her short story The Lottery was first published in The New Yorker in 1948, readers were so horrified they sent her hate mail; it has since become one of the greatest American stories of all time. Her first novel, The Road Through the Wall, was published in the same year and was followed by five Hangsaman, The Bird's Nest, The Sundial, The Haunting of Hill House and We Have Always Lived in the Castle, widely seen as her masterpiece. Shirley Jackson died in her sleep at the age of 48. "An amazing writer". (Neil Gaiman). "The world of Shirley Jackson is eerie and unforgettable...It is a place where things are not what they seem; even on a morning that is sunny and clear there is always the threat of darkness looming, of things taking a turn for the worse". (A. M. Homes). "Shirley Jackson is unparalleled as a leader in the field of beautifully written, quiet, cumulative shudders". (Dorothy Parker).
The Witchcraft of Salem Village
Shirley Jackson
A detailed account of one of the strangest and most shocking episodes in American history, written by the author of "The Lottery"Stories of magic, superstition, and witchcraft were strictly forbidden in the little town of Salem Village. But a group of young girls ignored those rules, spellbound by the tales told by a woman named Tituba. When questioned about their activities, the terrified girls set off a whirlwind of controversy as they accused townsperson after townsperson of being witches. Author Shirley Jackson examines in careful detail this horrifying true story of accusations, trials, and executions that shook a community to its foundations.
The Witch (Penguin Modern Classics)
Shirley Jackson
A terrifying short story from Shirley Jackson, the master of the macabre tale.Shirley Jackson's chilling tales of creeping unease and random cruelty have the power to unsettle and terrify unlike any other. When her story The Lottery was first published in The New Yorker in 1948, readers were so horrified they sent her hate mail. It became known as one of the greatest short stories ever written. Have you read her yet?'Shirley Jackson's stories are among the most terrifying ever written' Donna Tartt'An amazing writer ... if you haven't read any of her short stories ... you have missed out on something marvellous' Neil Gaiman'Her stories are stunning, timeless - as relevant and terrifying now as when they were first published ... 'The Lottery' is so much an icon in the history of the American short story that one could argue it has moved from the canon of American twentieth-century fiction directly into the American psyche, our collective unconscious' A. M. Homes Shirley Jackson was born in California in 1916. When her short story The Lottery was first published in The New Yorker in 1948, readers were so horrified they sent her hate mail; it has since become one of the greatest American stories of all time. Her first novel, The Road Through the Wall, was published in the same year and was followed by five Hangsaman, The Bird's Nest, The Sundial, The Haunting of Hill House and We Have Always Lived in the Castle, widely seen as her masterpiece. Shirley Jackson died in her sleep at the age of 48.
Un giorno come un altro
Shirley Jackson
Quando Shirley Jackson arrivò in ospedale per la nascita del terzo figlio, l’impiegata all’accettazione le chiese quale professione svolgesse. E alla risposta «Scrittrice», replicò imperturbabile: «Io metterei casalinga». Senza volerlo, quell’impiegata aveva toccato un nervo scoperto – e colto nel segno. L’autrice di uno dei più celebri e disturbanti racconti della letteratura americana moderna era anche, come emerge dagli irriverenti aneddoti familiari, un’eccentrica donna di casa e una madre spassosa e piena d’inventiva. Ed è impossibile non riconoscere qualcosa di lei nelle stravaganti Mary Poppins che popolano questa raccolta, accompagnate da gatti parlanti e in grado di confezionare abiti con le coccinelle e i denti di leone del giardino. Quanto al lato più macabro – quello che la spinge ad affrontare tormenti, aberrazioni, crudeltà, a sondare normalità, follia, soprannaturale e sordido, o ancora a rendere sottilmente inquietante la banalità di «un giorno come un altro», appunto –, il lettore non avrà che l’imbarazzo della scelta. Nessuno meglio di Shirley Jackson conosce «il male incontrollato» che si cela sotto la più linda e ordinata delle superfici. E solo lei sa mescolare assurdo, comico e spaventevole – avvelenata mistura –, portandoli alle estreme conseguenze con un’economia del dettato e un’acutezza del dettaglio del tutto inconfondibili.
We Have Always Lived in the Castle
Shirley Jackson
Shirley Jackson’s beloved gothic tale of a peculiar girl named Merricat and her family’s dark secret
Taking readers deep into a labyrinth of dark neurosis, We Have Always Lived in the Castle is a deliciously unsettling novel about a perverse, isolated, and possibly murderous family and the struggle that ensues when a cousin arrives at their estate. This edition features a new introduction by Jonathan Lethem.
Wir haben schon immer im Schloß gelebt
Shirley Jackson
Shirley Jackson ist in Deutschland bislang eine zu Unrecht immer noch unbekannte Verfasserin von Kriminalromanen. Sie wurde 1919 in San Francisco geboren und unterrichtete an der Syracuse University in New York. In ihrem Todesjahr, 1965, erhielt sie den begehrten Edgar-Allan-Poe-Preis.
Ihr Roman Wir haben schon immer im Schloß gelebt erzählt die Geschichte von Mary-Katherine und ihrer Schwester Constance, die zusammen mit ihrem Onkel Julian, der an den Rollstuhl gefesselt ist, draußen am Dorfrand leben. Die Geschichte wird von Mary-Katherine rückblickend geschildert. So ganz geheuer sind die Personen dem Leser nicht. Doch wem soll er trauen?
Mary-Katherine macht einen naiven, kindlichen Eindruck, wenn sie zweimal pro Woche ins Dorf einkaufen geht. Sie lebt vollkommen in ihrer eigenen Fantasiewelt und ist nach außen hin absolut kontaktscheu. Am liebsten richtet sie ihr Haus auf dem Mond ein. Onkel Julian beschäftigt sich ausschließlich mit der Aufzeichnung der tragischen Ereignisse und bringt laufend die Personen und Handlungen durcheinander. Da schwirrt oft nicht nur ihm selbst der Kopf. Am Vernünftigsten erscheint Constance -- und ausgerechnet sie soll die Giftmorde begangen haben? Immer wieder fragt sich der Leser, wem er in der Erzählung glauben kann. Ab und zu geht das so weit, dass er an sich selbst zu zweifeln beginnt.
Shirley Jackson schildert in diesem Roman die Tiefen der vordergründigen Realität und die Macht der Fantasie, die hier so stark erlebt wird, dass es ihnen nicht mehr gelingt, nach Maßgabe dessen, was sie sehen, zu handeln, sondern sie sind gezwungen, ihre Handlungen entsprechend ihrer Traumwelt auszuführen. Für den Leser ist es aufregend und unheimlich zugleich zusammen mit der Erzählerin die Übergänge zwischen der gegenständlichen Ebene und der zweiten -- unwirklichen -- Realität zu überschreiten. (amazon.de)
Zawsze mieszkałyśmy w zamku
Shirley Jackson
Niesamowita gotycka opowieść autorki Nawiedzonego Domu na Wzgórzu!
Merricat Blackwood wraz z siostrą Constance i wujem Julianem zamieszkują rodzinną posiadłość. Nie tak dawno temu rodzina liczyła siedmiu członków – do czasu, kiedy pewnej nocy do cukiernicy trafiła śmiertelna dawka arszeniku. Uwolniona od zarzutu morderstwa Constance wróciła do domu, gdzie Merricat robi wszystko, by uchronić ją przed natarczywością i wrogością miejscowej społeczności. Dni upływają w dosyć szczęśliwym odosobnieniu, aż pewnego dnia do posiadłości przybywa kuzyn Charles…
Na 2018 rok zaplanowano premierę ekranizacji książki.
هيتشكوك يقدم (5): جريمة الكريسماس والخطابات المسمومة
Shirley Jackson
أخذت الآنسة «سترينجوورث» بضعة أنفاس عميقة، وفكرت أنه لا يوجد شيء في هذا العالم بأكمله يوازي رائحة يوم من أيام الصيف. كانت تعرف جميع من في البلدة، طبعًا؛ كانت مغرمة بإخبار الأغراب – السياح الذين يمرون بالبلدة ويتوقفون لإبداء إعجابهم بزهور الآنسة «سترينجوورث»– أنها لم تقض يومًا كاملًا خارج تلك البلدة طيلة حياتها.
鬼入侵
Shirley Jackson
The Haunting of Hill House เป็นงานชิ้นสำคัญของเชอร์ลีย์ แจ็กสัน ผู้เขียน ‘บนดวงจันทร์ที่ไม่มีใครเป็นเจ้าของ’ ต้นแบบของนักเขียนแนวลึกลับสยองขวัญชื่อดังมากมายในปัจจุบัน (สองคนในจำนวนนั้นคือ สตีเวน คิง และนีล เกแมน)
หนังสือเล่าเรื่องของคนแปลกหน้าสี่คนที่มารวมตัวกันโดยที่ได้นัดหมาย ณ บ้านเก่าแก่หลังหนึ่งซึ่งมีตำนานเล่าขานว่ามีวิญญาณร้ายสิงสู่ เป้าหมายเพื่อพิสูจน์ว่า วิญญาณที่ว่าร้ายๆนั้น ที่สุดแล้วมีจริงหรือไม่
ไม่มีอะไร ‘ปกติ’ ในนิยายเรื่องนี้ ไม่ว่าตัวละครมนุษย์ หรือบ้านฮิลล์เฮาส์ ซึ่งผู้เขียนใส่ชีวิตให้กับมันจนมีบทบาทสำคัญต่อเรื่องเทียบเท่าตัวละครมนุษย์ กว่าสองร้อยหน้าคือการล่อหลอก คลึงเคล้น และบดขยี้สติของผู้อ่าน จนเราแทบจะเป็นบ้าไปพร้อมๆกับตัวละคร
สองประโยคที่น่าจะจำกัดความสาระสำคัญของนิยายเรื่องนี้ได้ดีที่สุดคือ “การเรียนรู้ว่าเรากลัวอะไร คือการทำความรู้จักว่าแท้จริงแล้วเราเป็นคนอย่างไร” และ “ที่สุดแล้วเราก็แค่กลัวการมองเห็นตัวเอง มองเห็นตัวเองอย่างแจ่มชัด ในสภาพที่ไร้สิ่งอำพรางปกป้อง”
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