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  • Published: 9 November 2009
  • ISBN: 9780141191430
  • Imprint: Penguin Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 320
  • RRP: $26.00

The Lottery and Other Stories




The definitive collection of Shirley Jackson's short stories, including 'The Lottery' - one of the most terrifying and iconic stories of the twentieth century

An excellent host finds himself turned out of home by his own guests; a woman spends her wedding day frantically searching for her husband-to-be; and in Shirley Jackson's best-known story, a small farming village comes together for a terrible lottery.

The creeping unease of lives squandered and the bloody glee of lives lost is chillingly captured in these tales of wasted potential and casual cruelty by a master of the short story.

  • Published: 9 November 2009
  • ISBN: 9780141191430
  • Imprint: Penguin Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 320
  • RRP: $26.00

About the author

Shirley Jackson

Shirley Jackson was born in San Francisco in 1916. She first received wide critical acclaim for her short story 'The Lottery', which was published in 1949. Her novels - which include The Sundial, The Bird's Nest, Hangsaman, The Road through the Wall, We Have Always Lived in the Castle and The Haunting of Hill House - are characterised by her use of realistic settings for tales that often involve elements of horror and the occult. Raising Demons and Life Among the Savages are her two works of nonfiction. Come Along With Me is a collection of stories, lectures, and part of the novel she was working on when she died in 1965.

Also by Shirley Jackson

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Praise for The Lottery and Other Stories

Shirley Jackson's stories are among the most terrifying ever written

Donna Tartt

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

Her stories are stunning, timeless - as relevant and terrifying now as when they were first published ... 'The Lottery' is so much an icon in the history of the American short story that one could argue it has moved from the canon of American twentieth-century fiction directly into the American psyche, our collective unconscious

A. M. Homes

One of the twentieth century's most luminous and strange American writers

Jonathan Lethem