The Haunting of Hill House: Penguin Modern Classics - Softcover

Jackson, Shirley

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0141191449 ISBN 13: 9780141191447

Publisher: Penguin Classics, 2009

Synopsis

THE INSPIRATION FOR THE NEW NETFLIX SERIES DEBUTING THIS HALLOWE'EN

The best-known of Shirley Jackson's novels and a major inspiration for writers like Neil Gaiman and Stephen King, The Haunting of Hill House is a chilling story of the power of fear.

'Shirley Jackson's stories are among the most terrifying ever written' Donna Tartt, author of The Goldfinch and The Secret History

Four seekers have arrived at the rambling old pile known as Hill House: Dr. Montague, an occult scholar looking for solid evidence of psychic phenomena; Theodora, his lovely assistant; Luke, the future inheritor of the estate; and Eleanor, a friendless, fragile young woman with a dark past. As they begin to cope with horrifying occurrences beyond their control or understanding, they cannot possibly know what lies ahead. For Hill House is gathering its powers - and soon it will choose one of them to make its own. Twice filmed as The Haunting, and the inspiration for a new 10-part Netflix series, The Haunting of Hill House is a powerful work of slow-burning psychological horror.

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 most iconic 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.

If you enjoyed The Haunting of Hill House, you might like Jackson's We Have Always Lived in the Castle, also available in Penguin Modern Classics.

'An amazing writer ... If you haven't read her you have missed out on something marvellous' Neil Gaiman

'As nearly perfect a haunted-house tale as I have ever read' Stephen King

'The world of Shirley Jackson is eerie and unforgettable' A. M. Homes

'Shirley Jackson is one of those highly idiosyncratic, inimitable writers...whose work exerts an enduring spell' Joyce Carol Oates

About this title

Review

Stepping into Hill House is like stepping into the mind of a madman; it isn't long before you weird yourself out (Stephen King)

An amazing writer ... If you haven't read We Have Always Lived in the Castle or The Haunting of Hill House or any of her short stories you have missed out on something marvellous (Neil Gaiman)

The world of Shirley Jackson is eerie and unforgettable ... She is a true master (A. M. Homes)

One of the twentieth century's most luminous and strange American writers (Jonathan Lethem)

Her books penetrate keenly to the terrible truths which sometimes hide behind comfortable fictions, to the treachery beneath cheery neighborhood faces and the plain manners of country folk (Donna Tartt)

She is the finest master...of the cryptic, haunted tale (The New York Times Book Review)

A novel which at one stroke puts her unquestionably among the great masters of the genre . . . as spine-chilling . . . as anything Edgar Allan Poe dreamed up. (Peter Green Daily Telegraph)

About the Author

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 most iconic American stories of all time. Her first novel, The Road Through the Wall, was published in the same year and was followed by 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. In addition to her dark, brilliant novels, she wrote lightly fictionalized magazine pieces about family life with her four children and her husband, the critic Stanley Edgar Hyman. Shirley Jackson died in 1965.

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin Classics
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0141191449
• ISBN 13: 9780141191447
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 256