Editing Shirley Jackson (section)

==Legacy==
{{Further|Shirley Jackson Award}}
In 2007, the [[Shirley Jackson Award]]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 [[Readercon]].<ref name="globe">{{cite news |last=Gardner |first=Jan |title=Shelf Life |url=http://www.boston.com/ae/books/articles/2010/06/27/shelf_life/ |access-date=October 16, 2010 |newspaper=The Boston Globe |date=June 27, 2010}}</ref><ref name="salon">{{cite web |last=Miller |first=Laura |title=Is Shirley Jackson a great American writer? |url=http://www.salon.com/books/laura_miller/2010/07/14/shirley_jackson/ |website=Salon.com |date=July 14, 2010 |access-date=  October 16, 2010}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.shirleyjacksonawards.org/ |title=The Shirley Jackson Awards |access-date=September 28, 2013}}</ref>

In 2014, [[Susan Scarf Merrell]] published a well-received thriller, ''Shirley: A Novel'', about Jackson, her husband, a fictional couple who move in with them, and a missing girl.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/susan-scarf-merrell/shirley/  |title=Shirley: A Novel by Susan Scarf Merrell (June 12, 2014) |website=Kirkus Review |access-date=October 18, 2019}}</ref> In 2020, the novel was adapted into a feature film, ''[[Shirley (2020 film)|Shirley]]'', directed by [[Josephine Decker]].<ref>{{Cite web |last=O'Malley |first=Sheila |date=2020-06-05 |title=Shirley movie review & film summary (2020) |url=https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/shirley-movie-review-2020 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240226012925/https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/shirley-movie-review-2020 |archive-date=2024-02-26 |access-date=2024-06-27 |website=[[RogerEbert.com]] |language=en}}</ref> [[Elisabeth Moss]] portrays Jackson and [[Michael Stuhlbarg]] costars as Stanley Edgar Hyman.

In 2016, journalist [[Ruth Franklin]] published ''Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life'', a biography examining the influence of Jackson's upbringing, marriage, and addictions upon her work, while positioning Jackson as a major figure in American literature and examiner of postwar American anxieties via "domestic horror." Franklin's biography would go on to receive the [[National Book Critics Circle Award]] for Biography, the [[Edgar Award]] for Critical/Biographical Work, and the [[Bram Stoker Award for Best Non-Fiction]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://wwnorton.com/books/9780871403131  |title=Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life - Ruth Franklin  |website= W. W. Norton & Company |access-date=June 8, 2020}}</ref> Franklin also wrote the foreword for the 2021 publication ''Shirley Jackson: A Companion.'' This collection features comprehensive critical engagement with Jackson's works, including those that have received less scholarly attention.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1202733172|title=Shirley Jackson : a companion|others=Woofter, Kristopher, 1971-|year=2021|isbn=978-1-80079-074-2|location=Oxford|oclc=1202733172}}</ref>

Since at least 2015, Jackson's adopted home of North Bennington has honored her legacy by celebrating Shirley Jackson Day on June 27, the day the fictional story "The Lottery" took place.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.benningtonbanner.com/community/ci_28376945/shirley-jackson-day-returns-north-bennington|title=Shirley Jackson Day Returns to North Bennington|website=[[Bennington Banner]]|access-date=May 31, 2016|archive-date=July 2, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160702011948/http://www.benningtonbanner.com/community/ci_28376945/shirley-jackson-day-returns-north-bennington|url-status=dead}}</ref>

Jackson has been cited as an influence on a diverse set of authors, including [[Neil Gaiman]], [[Stephen King]], [[Sarah Waters]], [[Nigel Kneale]], [[Claire Fuller]], [[Joanne Harris]],<ref name="Guardian 14 December 2016">{{cite news |last= Harris |first= Joanne | author-link= Joanne Harris| title= Shirley Jackson centenary: a quiet, hidden rage |url= https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/dec/14/shirley-jackson-centenary-quiet-hidden-rage-joanne-harris| date= December 14, 2016 |newspaper= [[The Guardian]] |location=London| access-date=  December 22, 2016 }}</ref> and [[Richard Matheson]].<ref>{{cite web|last=Murphy|first=Bernice|date=August 31, 2004|url=http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=2326|title= Shirley Jackson (1916–1965)|website=[[The Literary Encyclopedia (English)|The Literary Encyclopedia]]|access-date=February 5, 2018}} {{subscription required}}</ref>

===Critical assessment===
Lenemaja Friedman's ''Shirley Jackson'' (Twayne Publishers, 1975) was 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. Joshi]]'s ''The Modern Weird Tale'' (2001) offers a critical essay on Jackson's work.<ref name="Joshi 2001">{{cite book| last= Joshi |first= S. T. | title= The Modern Weird Tale: A Critique of Horror Fiction | date =June 30, 2001 |publisher=[[McFarland & Company]]  | isbn= 978-0786409860| chapter= Shirley Jackson: Domestic Horror }}</ref>

A comprehensive overview of Jackson's short fiction is Joan Wylie Hall's ''Shirley Jackson: A Study of the Short Fiction'' (Twayne Publishers, 1993).<ref name="openlibrary-1731871M">{{cite book |last1=Hall |first1=Joan Wylie |title=Shirley Jackson: a study of the short fiction |url=https://openlibrary.org/books/OL1731871M/Shirley_Jackson |publisher=Twayne Publishers |access-date=August 4, 2022 |date=1993 |isbn=9780805708530 |ol=1731871M |via= [[Open Library]]}}</ref> 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'' ([[Lewiston, New York]]: [[Edwin Mellen Press]], 2001).<ref>{{cite book |last1=Reinsch |first1=Paul N. |title=A History of Hauntings: A Critical Bibliography of Shirley Jackson |date=1998 |publisher=George Mason University |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ECj5NwAACAAJ |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Reinsch |first1=Paul N. |title=A Critical Bibliography of Shirley Jackson, American Writer (1919-1965): Reviews, Criticism, Adaptations |date=2001 |location=[[Lewiston, New York]]|publisher=[[Edwin Mellen Press]] |isbn=978-0-7734-7393-5 |language=en}}</ref> 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 ''Shirley Jackson: Essays on the Literary Legacy'' ([[McFarland & Company]], 2005) is a collection of commentaries on Jackson's work. Colin Hains's ''Frightened by a Word: Shirley Jackson & Lesbian Gothic'' (2007) explores the lesbian themes in Jackson's major novels.<ref name="Haines 2007">{{cite book| last= Haines |first= Colin | title= Frightened by a Word: Shirley Jackson & Lesbian Gothic (Studia Anglistica Upsaliensia) | date =December 31, 2007 | publisher = Uppsala Universitet | isbn= 978-9155468446 }}</ref>

According to the post-feminist critic [[Elaine Showalter]], Jackson's work is the single most important mid-twentieth-century body of literary output yet to have its value reevaluated by critics.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/shirley-jackson-a-rather-haunted-life/2016/09/15/4293b85e-5f2b-11e6-af8e-54aa2e849447_story.html|title=Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life|author=Elaine Showalter|date=September 22, 2016|newspaper=The Washington Post|access-date=February 13, 2017}}</ref> In a March&nbsp;4, 2009, podcast distributed by the business publisher ''The Economist'', Showalter also noted that [[Joyce Carol Oates]] had edited a collection of Jackson's work called ''Shirley Jackson Novels and Stories'' that was published in the [[Library of America]] series.<ref name="Library of America">{{cite book| last= Jackson |first= Shirley | editor-last= Oates |editor-first= Joyce Carol | title= Shirley Jackson: Novels and Stories | date=May 27, 2010 | publisher= [[Library of America]] | isbn= 978-1598530728 }}</ref><ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/10/nyregion/public-lives-the-mostly-late-greats-in-new-circulation.html|title=PUBLIC LIVES; The (Mostly Late) Greats, in New Circulation|author=Robin Finn|date=July 10, 2001|newspaper=The New York Times|access-date=February 13, 2017}}</ref>

Oates wrote of Jackson's fiction: "Characterized by the caprice and fatalism of fairy tales, the fiction of Shirley Jackson exerts a mordant, hypnotic spell."<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2016/10/27/shirley-jackson-in-love-death/|title=Shirley Jackson in Love & Death|last=Oates|first=Joyce Carol|journal=New York Review of Books|date=October 27, 2016|access-date=August 15, 2019|language=en|issn=0028-7504}}</ref>

Jackson's husband 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 magazine|Sunday supplements]]. She believed that her books would speak for her clearly enough over the years".<ref name="Hyman-ix">{{cite book |last=Hyman |first=Stanley Edgar |title=The Magic of Shirley Jackson |place=New York|publisher=[[Farrar, Straus and Giroux]] |year=1966 |chapter=Preface|page=ix|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=N9E_IacN850C&pg=PR9|isbn=9780374196042 }}</ref> Hyman insisted that the dark visions found in Jackson's work were not, as some critics claimed, the product of "personal, even neurotic, fantasies", but, rather, comprised "a sensitive and faithful anatomy" of the [[Cold War]] era in which she lived, "fitting symbols for [a] distressing world of the concentration camp and the Bomb".<ref name="Hyman-viii">
{{cite book |last=Hyman |first=Stanley Edgar |title=The Magic of Shirley Jackson |place=New York|publisher=[[Farrar, Straus and Giroux]] |year=1966 |chapter=Preface|page=viii|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=N9E_IacN850C&pg=PR8|isbn=9780374196042 }}</ref> Jackson may even have taken pleasure in the subversive impact of her work, as indicated 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".<ref name="Hyman-viii"/>

The 1980s witnessed considerable scholarly interest in Jackson's work. Peter Kosenko, a Marxist critic, advanced an economic interpretation of "The Lottery" that focused on "the inequitable stratification of the social order".<ref>{{cite journal |title=A Marxist/Feminist Reading of Shirley Jackson's ''The Lottery'' |journal=New Orleans Review |volume=12 |issue=1 |date=Spring 1985 |pages=27–32}}</ref> Sue Veregge Lape argued in her Ph.D. thesis that feminist critics who did not consider Jackson to be a feminist played a significant role in her lack of earlier critical attention.<ref>{{cite thesis |last=Lape |first=Sue Veregge |date=1992 |title='The Lottery's' hostage: The life and feminist fiction of Shirley Jackson |type=Ph.D. |institution=Ohio State University |url=https://etd.ohiolink.edu/!etd.send_file?accession=osu1237656492&disposition=inline}}</ref> In contrast, Jacob Appel has written that Jackson was an "anti-regionalist writer" whose criticism of New England proved unpalatable to the American literary establishment.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Appel |first=Jacob |title=Shirley Jackson's Anti-Regionalism |journal=Florida English |volume=10 |page=3}}</ref>

In 2009, critic [[Harold Bloom]] published an extensive study of Jackson's work, challenging the notion that it was worthy of inclusion in the [[Western canon]]; Bloom wrote of "The Lottery", specifically: "Her art of narration [stays] on the surface, and could not depict individual identities. Even 'The Lottery' wounds you once, and once only."{{sfn|Bloom|2009|p=10}}