Publication Order of Standalone Novels
| The Road Through the Wall | 1948 |
| Hangsaman | 1951 |
| The Bird’s Nest | 1954 |
| The Sundial | 1958 |
| The Haunting of Hill House | 1959 |
| We Have Always Lived in the Castle | 1962 |
Publication Order of Short Story Collections
| The Lottery and Other Stories | 1949 |
| Come Along with Me | 1968 |
| Just an Ordinary Day | 1996 |
| Let Me Tell You: New Stories, Essays, and Other Writings | 2015 |
Publication Order of Children’s Books
| The Witchcraft of Salem Village | 1956 |
| Nine Magic Wishes | 1963 |
| Famous Sally | 1966 |
Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books
| Life Among the Savages | 1953 |
| Raising Demons | 1957 |
| Special Delivery: A Useful Book for Brand-New Mothers | 1960 |
| The Letters of Shirley Jackson | 2021 |
About Shirley Jackson
Shirley Jackson (1916 to 1965) was an American writer known mainly for her horror and mystery fiction, including the short story “The Lottery” and the novels “The Haunting of Hill House” and “We Have Always Lived in the Castle”. In a career of just over two decades she wrote six novels, two memoirs and more than 200 short stories.
Jackson was born in San Francisco on 14 December 1916 and raised in Burlingame, California. Her family moved to Rochester, New York, during her last year of high school. She studied at the University of Rochester and then at Syracuse University, where she took a degree in journalism and met her future husband, the critic Stanley Edgar Hyman, through the campus literary magazine. They married in 1940 and settled in North Bennington, Vermont, where Hyman taught at Bennington College. They had four children.
In 1948 Jackson published her first novel, “The Road Through the Wall”, a semi-autobiographical account of her California childhood. On 26 June of the same year The New Yorker printed “The Lottery”, which presents the sinister underside of an American village and prompted more than 300 letters from readers. It was collected in “The Lottery and Other Stories” in 1949. Three more novels followed: “Hangsaman” (1951), “The Bird’s Nest” (1954), about a woman with multiple personalities, and “The Sundial” (1958).
She also wrote two memoirs of family life, “Life Among the Savages” (1953) and “Raising Demons” (1957), drawing on stories about her children that she had published in magazines.
“The Haunting of Hill House” (1959), about a paranormal study at a reportedly haunted mansion, was nominated for the National Book Award. It was filmed as “The Haunting” in 1963 and 1999 and loosely adapted as a Netflix series in 2018. Her final novel, “We Have Always Lived in the Castle” (1962), was named one of Time magazine’s ten best novels of the year, and a film version premiered in 2018. “The Bird’s Nest” was filmed as “Lizzie” in 1957.
Jackson died in her sleep at her home in North Bennington in 1965, aged 48. Her husband edited “Come Along with Me” (1968), which contains her unfinished last novel, and further stories appeared in “Just an Ordinary Day” (1996) and “Let Me Tell You” (2015). The Shirley Jackson Awards were established in 2007.
Photo: Eric Hartmann, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (cropped).