Editing Shirley Jackson (section)

==Writing career==

==="The Lottery" and early publications===
In 1948, Jackson published her debut novel, ''[[The Road Through the Wall]]'', which tells a semi-autobiographical account of her childhood growing up in [[Burlingame, California]], in the 1920s. Jackson's most famous story, "[[The Lottery]]", first published in ''The New Yorker'' on June&nbsp;26, 1948, established her reputation as a master of the horror tale.<ref name="ContempAuthors">"Shirley Jackson". ''[[Contemporary Authors]]''. Detroit: Gale, 2016. Retrieved via ''[[Gale Biography In Context]]'' database, October 24, 2016. "''The Haunting of Hill House'' has become one of the most respected haunted house stories."</ref> The story prompted over 300 letters from readers,{{sfn|Franklin|2016|p=231}} many of them outraged at its conjuring of a dark aspect of human nature,<ref name="ContempAuthors"/> characterized by, as Jackson put it, "bewilderment, speculation, and old-fashioned abuse".{{sfn|Franklin|2016|p=221}} In the July 22, 1948, issue of the ''[[San Francisco Chronicle]]'', Jackson offered the following in response to persistent queries from her readers about her intentions: "Explaining just what I had hoped the story to say is very difficult. I suppose I hoped, by setting a particularly brutal ancient rite in the present and in my own village, to shock the story's readers with a graphic dramatization of the pointless violence and general inhumanity in their own lives."{{sfn|Bloom|2009|pages=33–34}}

The critical reaction to the story was unequivocally positive; the story quickly became a standard in anthologies and was adapted for television in 1952.<ref name="DictAmerBio">"Shirley Hardie Jackson". ''Dictionary of American Biography''. New York: [[Charles Scribner's Sons]], 1981. Retrieved via ''[[Gale Biography In Context]]'' database, October 24, 2016.</ref> In 1949, "The Lottery" was published in a short story collection of Jackson's titled ''The Lottery and Other Stories''.{{sfn|Franklin|2016|pages=220, 257–259}}

Jackson's second novel, ''[[Hangsaman]]'' (1951), contained elements similar to the mysterious real-life December&nbsp;1, 1946, disappearance of an 18-year-old Bennington College sophomore [[Paula Jean Welden]]. This event, which remains unsolved to this day, took place in the wooded wilderness of [[Glastenbury Mountain]] near [[Bennington, Vermont|Bennington]] in southern Vermont, where Jackson and her family were living at the time. The fictional college depicted in ''Hangsaman'' is based in part on Jackson's experiences at Bennington College, as indicated by Jackson's papers in the Library of Congress.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/h?faid/faid:@field(DOCID+ms996001) |title=Shirley Jackson Papers |publisher=[[Library of Congress]] |access-date=September 28, 2013}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last=Powers |first=Tim |title=Remember Paula Welden? 30 Years Ago |newspaper=Bennington Banner |date=December 1, 1976}}</ref> The event also served as inspiration for her short story "The Missing Girl" (first published in ''The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction'' in 1957, and posthumously in ''Just an Ordinary Day'' [1996]).

The following year, she published ''[[Life Among the Savages]]'', a semi-autobiographical collection of short stories based on her own life with her four children,{{sfn|Franklin|2016|pages=156–158}} many of which had been published prior in popular magazines such as ''[[Good Housekeeping]]'', ''[[Woman's Day]]'' and ''[[Collier's]]''.<ref name="DictAmerBio"/> Semi-fictionalized versions of her marriage and the experience of bringing up four children, these works are "true-to-life funny-housewife stories" of the type later popularized by such writers as [[Jean Kerr]] and [[Erma Bombeck]] during the 1950s and 1960s.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/10/books/review/shirley-jacksons-life-among-the-savages-and-raising-demons-reissued.html?_r=0 |title=Shirley Jackson's 'Life Among the Savages' and 'Raising Demons' Reissued |author=Franklin, Ruth |date=May 8, 2015 |website=The New York Times |access-date=February 13, 2017}}</ref>

Reluctant to discuss her work with the public, Jackson wrote in Stanley J. Kunitz and Howard Haycraft's ''Twentieth Century Authors'' (1955):{{sfn|Kunitz|1973|p=483}}
{{blockquote|I very much dislike writing about myself or my work, and when pressed for autobiographical material can only give a bare chronological outline which contains, naturally, no pertinent facts. I was born in San Francisco in 1919 [sic] and spent most of my early life in California. I was married in 1940 to Stanley Edgar Hyman, critic and numismatist, and we live in Vermont, in a quiet rural community with fine scenery and comfortably far away from city life. Our major exports are books and children, both of which we produce in abundance. The children are Laurence, Joanne, Sarah, and Barry: my books include three novels, ''The Road Through the Wall'', ''Hangsaman'', ''[[The Bird's Nest (novel)|The Bird's Nest]]'' and a collection of short stories, ''The Lottery''. ''Life Among the Savages'' is a disrespectful memoir of my children.}}"The persona that Jackson presented to the world was powerful, witty, even imposing," wrote [[Zoë Heller]] in ''[[The New Yorker]].'' "She could be sharp and aggressive with fey Bennington girls and salesclerks and people who interrupted her writing. Her letters are filled with tartly funny observations. Describing the bewildered response of ''The New Yorker'' readers to 'The Lottery,' she notes, 'The number of people who expected Mrs. Hutchinson to win a [[Bendix Corporation|Bendix]] washing machine at the end would amaze you.{{'-}}"<ref name=":0" />

===''The Haunting of Hill House'' and other works===
In 1954, Jackson published ''[[The Bird's Nest (novel)|The Bird's Nest]]'' (1954), which detailed a woman with multiple personalities and her relationship with her psychiatrist.{{sfn|Franklin|2016|p=333}} One of Jackson's publishers, [[Roger Williams Straus Jr.|Roger Straus]], deemed ''The Bird's Nest'' "a perfect novel", but the publishing house marketed it as a psychological horror story, which displeased her.{{sfn|Franklin|2016|p=336}} Her following novel, ''[[The Sundial]]'', was published four years later and concerned a family of wealthy eccentrics who believe they have been chosen to survive the end of the world.{{sfn|Franklin|2016|p=351}} She later published two [[memoir]]s, ''[[Life Among the Savages]]'' and ''[[Raising Demons]]''.

Jackson's fifth novel, ''[[The Haunting of Hill House]]'' (1959), follows a group of individuals participating in a paranormal study at a reportedly haunted mansion.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://writershouses.com/guest/shirley-jackson-doesn%E2%80%99t-have-a-house|title=Shirley Jackson Doesn't Have a House|author=Susan Scarf Merrell|date=August 10, 2010|website=writershouses.com|access-date=October 16, 2018|archive-date=October 17, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181017001728/http://writershouses.com/guest/shirley-jackson-doesn%E2%80%99t-have-a-house|url-status=dead}}</ref> The novel, which interpolated supernatural phenomena with [[psychology]],{{sfn|Franklin|2016|p=312}} went on to become a critically esteemed example of the haunted house story,<ref name="ContempAuthors"/><ref>{{cite web|website=The Wall Street Journal|url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748703298004574455551864001062 |title=Chilling Fiction|date=October 29, 2009|access-date=December 30, 2017}} {{subscription required}}</ref> described by [[Joanne Harris]] as "not only the best haunted-house story ever written, but also a quiet subversion of the ingénue trope in horror fiction, with a nod to [[Jean-Paul Sartre|Sartre]]'s ''[[No Exit|Huis Clos]]'' with its toxic menage a trois"<ref>{{Cite news |last=Harris |first=Joanne |date=2016-12-14 |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 |access-date=2024-09-11 |work=The Guardian |language=en-GB |issn=0261-3077}}</ref> and by [[Stephen King]] as one of the most important horror novels of the twentieth century.<ref>{{cite web|author=Missing, Sophie|date=February 6, 2010|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/feb/07/haunting-hill-house-shirley-jackson|title=Review of The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson|website=The Guardian|access-date=December 23, 2017}}</ref> Also in 1959, Jackson published the one-act children's musical ''The Bad Children'', based on ''[[Hansel and Gretel]]''.<ref>{{cite book|title=The Bad Children: A Musical in One Act for Bad Children|author=Jackson, Shirley|year=1959|isbn= 978-1-583-42211-3|publisher=Dramatic Publishing}}</ref>

===Declining health and death===
By the time ''The Haunting of Hill House'' had been published, Jackson suffered numerous health problems. She was a heavy [[tobacco smoking|smoker]], resulting in chronic [[asthma]].  She also suffered from joint pain, exhaustion, and dizziness leading to fainting spells, which were attributed to a heart problem.{{sfn|Franklin|2016|pages=338–340}} Near the end of her life, Jackson also saw a psychiatrist for severe anxiety that had kept her housebound for extended periods of time, a problem worsened by a diagnosis of [[colitis]], which made it physically difficult to travel even short distances from her home.{{sfn|Downey|Jones|2005|p=217}} To ease her anxiety and [[agoraphobia]], the doctor prescribed [[barbiturates]], which at that time were considered a safe, harmless drug.{{sfn|Franklin|2016|pp=275–280}} For many years, she also had periodic prescriptions for [[amphetamines]] for weight loss, which may have inadvertently aggravated her anxiety, leading to a cycle of prescription drug abuse using the two medications to counteract each other's effects.{{sfn|Franklin|2016|p=4}} Any of these factors, or a combination of all of them, may have contributed to her declining health.{{sfn|Franklin|2016|pp=275–280}} Jackson confided to friends that she felt patronized in her role as a "faculty wife" and ostracized by the townspeople of North Bennington. Her dislike of this situation led to her increasing abuse of alcohol in addition to tranquilizers and amphetamines.<ref>{{cite magazine | url=http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/10/17/the-haunted-mind-of-shirley-jackson | title=The Haunted Mind of Shirley Jackson | first=Zoë | last=Heller | date=October 17, 2016 | magazine=[[The New Yorker]] | access-date=February 20, 2017}}</ref>

Despite her failing health, Jackson continued to write and publish several works in the 1960s, including her final novel, ''[[We Have Always Lived in the Castle]]'' (1962), a Gothic mystery novel.<ref name=hattenhauer/> It was named by [[Time (magazine)|''Time'' magazine]] as one of the "Ten Best Novels" of 1962.<ref name=hattenhauer>{{cite book|isbn=978-0-7914-5607-1|title=Shirley Jackson's American Gothic|first=Darryl|last=Hattenhauer|publisher=[[SUNY Press]]|page=195|date= 2003}}</ref> The following year, she published ''Nine Magic Wishes'', an illustrated children's novel about a child who encounters a magician who grants him numerous enchanting wishes.{{sfn|Franklin|2016|p=458}} The psychological aspects of her illness responded well to therapy, and by 1964 she began to resume normal activities, including a round of speaking engagements at writers' conferences, as well as planning a new novel titled ''Come Along with Me,'' which was to be a major departure from the style and subject matter of her previous works.

In 1965, Jackson died in her sleep at her home in North Bennington, at the age of 48.{{sfn|Franklin|2016|p=339}} Her death was attributed to a [[coronary occlusion]] due to arteriosclerosis{{sfn|Franklin|2016|p=494}} or [[cardiac arrest]].{{sfn|Oppenheimer|1988|p=269}} She was cremated, as was her wish.{{sfn|Franklin|2016|p=495}}

===Posthumous publications===
In 1968, Jackson's husband released a posthumous volume of her work, ''Come Along with Me'', containing her unfinished last novel, as well as 14 previously uncollected short stories (among them "Louisa, Please Come Home") and three lectures she gave at colleges or writers' conferences in her last years.<ref>Hyman, Stanley Edgar (2014). "Preface" from the first edition, 1968. In: Shirley Jackson, ''Come Along with Me: Classic Short Stories and an Unfinished Novel''. New York: Penguin. {{ISBN|978-1-101-61605-5}}.</ref>

In 1996, a crate of unpublished stories was found in a barn behind Jackson's house. A selection of those stories, along with previously uncollected stories from various magazines, were published in the 1996 volume ''Just an Ordinary Day''.<ref>{{Cite news |date=2015-08-08 |title=Shirley Jackson: Extraordinary tale of one of America's eeriest writers |url=https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/life/books/shirley-jackson-extraordinary-tale-of-one-of-americas-eeriest-writers/31435610.html |access-date=2025-01-01 |work=BelfastTelegraph.co.uk |language=en-GB |issn=0307-1235}}</ref> The title was taken from one of her stories for ''[[The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction]]'', "One Ordinary Day, with Peanuts".<ref>{{Cite web |last=Bradfield |first=Scott |date=2021-07-14 |title=Shirley Jackson's letters could make an errand more exciting than your entire life |url=https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/books/story/2021-07-14/shirley-jacksons-letters-could-make-an-errand-more-exciting-than-your-entire-life |access-date=2025-01-01 |website=Los Angeles Times |language=en-US}}</ref>

Jackson's papers are available in the [[Library of Congress]]. In its August 5, 2013, issue ''The New Yorker'' published "Paranoia", which the magazine said was discovered at the library.<ref>{{cite magazine |author= Cressida Leyshon|url=http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2013/07/this-week-in-fiction-shirley-jackson-paranoia.html#slide_ss_0=1 |title=This Week in Fiction: Shirley Jackson |magazine=[[The New Yorker]] |date=July 26, 2013 |access-date=August 5, 2013}}</ref> ''Let Me Tell You'', a collection of stories and essays by Jackson (mostly unpublished) was released in 2015.<ref name="D&C Let Me Tell You">{{cite news |last1=Spevak |first1=Jeff |title=New Shirley Jackson tales published |url=https://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/lifestyle/people/2015/08/01/shirley-jackson-book/30941765/ |access-date=April 5, 2022 |work=[[Democrat and Chronicle]] |date=August 1, 2015}}</ref><ref name=eb>{{cite web|url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Shirley-Jackson|access-date=February 5, 2018|title=Shirley Jackson|website=[[Encyclopædia Britannica]]}}</ref>

In December 2020, the short story "Adventure on a Bad Night" was published for the first time, appearing in ''[[The Strand Magazine]]''.<ref>{{cite web| last= Flood| first= Alison| title= Unseen Shirley Jackson story to be published| url= https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/dec/17/unseen-shirley-jackson-story-to-be-published-adventure-on-a-bad-night | date= December 17, 2020| work= [[The Guardian]]| access-date= December 17, 2020 }}</ref>