Shirley Jackson

"Merricat Blackwood lives on the family estate with her sister Constance and her uncle Julian. Not long ago there were seven Blackwoods--until a fatal dose of arsenic found its way into the sugar bowl one terrible night. Acquitted of the murders, Constance has returned home, where Merricat protects her from the curiousity and hostility of the villagers. Their days pass in happy isolation until cousin Charles appears. Only Merricat can see the danger,...

"There is a certain place where dumbwaiters boom, doors slam, dishes crash; every window is a mother's mouth bidding the street shut up, go skate somewhere else, come home." - From The Loudest Voice by Grace Paley

Hilarious and colorful episodes in the lives of families - many depicted from a kid's-eye-view - are the theme for this compilation. Being part of a family is often trying, and stranger than any fiction, but never dull and always worth

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A collection of twenty-five tales exploring a world of horror and the macabre features the author's haunting story of a small town's yearly ritual of evil

"In a hilariously charming domestic memoir, America's celebrated master of terror turns to a different kind of fright: raising children. In her celebrated fiction, Shirley Jackson explored the darkness lurking beneath the surface of small-town America. But in Life Among the Savages, she takes on the lighter side of small-town life. In this witty and warm memoir of her family's life in rural Vermont, she delightfully exposes a domestic side in cheerful...

"The renowned author of 'The lottery' and 'The haunting of Hill House', 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. Now comes a spectacular volume of previously uncollected stories, essays, and other writings. 'Let me tell you' brings together the deliciously eerie short stories Jackson is best...

Franklin has gathered four of Jackson's novels, with which she began her irreplaceable, all too-brief career. Originally published between 1948 and 1958, they are published here without change except for the correction of typographical errors. Within these stories Jackson explores the recessed concealed within the prosperous world of the postwar 1940s and 50s-- and withing our own unacknowledged selves. -- adapted from front flap and Note on the Texts,...

In the long out-of-print sequel to Life Among the Savages, Jackson's four children have grown from savages into full-fledged demons. After bursting the seams of their first house, Jackson's clan moves into a larger home. Of course, the chaos simply moves with them. A confrontation with the IRS, Little League, trumpet lessons, and enough clutter to bury her alive--Jackson spins them all into an indelible reminder that every bit as thrilling as a murderous...

"Shirley Jackson is one of the most important American authors of the last hundred years and among our greatest writers of the female experience. This extraordinary compilation of personal correspondence has all the hallmarks of Jackson's beloved fiction, and also features family photographs and Shirley's own illustrations. Written over the course of nearly three decades, from Jackson's college years to three months before her premature death at the...

Elizabeth is a demure twenty-three-year-old whiling her life away at a dull museum job, living with her neurotic aunt, and subsisting off her dead mother's inheritance. When Elizabeth begins to suffer terrible migraines and backaches, her aunt takes her to the doctor, then to a psychiatrist. But slowly, and with Jackson's characteristic chill, we learn that Elizabeth is not just one girl--but four separate, self-destructive personalities.