The Haunting of Hill House

"[One of] the only two great novels of the supernatural in the last hundred years.” —Stephen King
“Shirley Jackson proves again that she is the finest master currently practicing in the genre of the cryptic, haunted tale.” —Edmund Fuller, The New York Times

First published in 1959, ‘The Haunting of Hill House’ is Shirley Jackson’s masterful and unsettling exploration of psychological terror. The novel follows Eleanor Vance, a quiet and lonely woman who joins a small group at the infamous Hill House to assist in a paranormal investigation. Led by Dr. John Montague, and joined by the vivacious Theodora and the skeptical Luke Sanderson, the group soon finds themselves at the mercy of the house’s dark and inexplicable forces.
As strange and eerie events unfold, the boundaries between the supernatural and the psychological begin to blur. Eleanor, emotionally fragile and deeply affected by the house, finds herself drawn into its malevolent presence in ways the others cannot fully understand.
Rather than relying on overt horror, Jackson crafts a chilling atmosphere filled with dread, ambiguity, and emotional intensity. ‘The Haunting of Hill House’ is more than a ghost story—it is a study of isolation, vulnerability, and the haunting nature of the human mind. With elegant prose and unforgettable imagery, the novel remains one of the greatest and most influential works of supernatural fiction, a timeless classic that continues to captivate and disturb readers worldwide.

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 1948. 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 characterized 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. All are currently in print (Penguin). Two posthumous volumes of her short fiction are Just An Ordinary Day (Bantam) and Let Me Tell You (Random House). A graphic novel adaptation of "The Lottery" by Miles Hyman, her grandson, was published in 2016 (Farrar-Straus-Giroux). Also in 2016: Dark Tales by Shirley Jackson (Penguin Classics) and an authorized biography by Ruth Franklin: Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life (Norton).