The Lottery and Other Dark Tales

by Shirley Jackson, Angie Hoffmeister (Illustrator), Ruth Franklin (Introduction)

From poisoned-pen letters to ominous small towns, this exclusive Folio collection gathers Shirley Jackson’s most unsettling short stories – including the iconic "The Lottery." Illustrated by Angie Hoffmeister and introduced by biographer Ruth Franklin, it’s a darkly elegant volume from the master of psychological suspense and uncanny domestic horror.

Editor's Notes
Poisoned-pen letters, unsettling motels, fractured marriages and missing girls abound in Shirley Jackson’s carefully constructed stories of small-town America and the underlying darkness beneath domesticity. With the publication of "The Lottery" in 1948, Jackson created a moral panic (as well as giving the world one of the greatest short stories in American literature) and revealed a style that builds a sense of dread, discomfort and eerie paranoia with each sentence.

Illustrated by the evocative and atmospheric ink and watercolors of Angie Hoffmeister, this edition is accompanied by a new introduction by Jackson’s biographer Ruth Franklin, who explores the author’s themes of isolation and desire. This exclusive selection of stories contains many of Jackson’s best-known and most celebrated works, as well as some lesser-known pieces that display her ability to create atmosphere, suspense and, ultimately, to shock.

Synopsis
The Lottery and Other Dark Tales invites readers into a world where the mundane twists into the macabre. From the chilling ritual of the title story to unsettling explorations of paranoia, cruelty and societal decay, Jackson masterfully reveals the darkness lurking beneath everyday life. Each tale is a razor-sharp examination of human nature, steeped in eerie atmospheres and haunting revelations.

This collection cements Jackson’s place as a literary pioneer, with unforgettable stories that linger long after the final sentence.

Book Details
Bound in printed and blocked textured paper
Printed slipcase
8½ inches × 5½ inches
Typeset in Arno with Zachar as display
288 pages
Frontispiece and 6 color illustrations, including 2 double-page spreads

Genres: Horror

288 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2025

About the author

Shirley Jackson was an influential American author. A popular writer in her time, her work has received increasing attention from literary critics in recent years. She has influenced such writers as Stephen King, Nigel Kneale, and Richard Matheson.

She is best known for her dystopian short story, "The Lottery" (1948), which suggests there is a deeply unsettling underside to bucolic, smalltown America. In her critical biography of Shirley Jackson, Lenemaja Friedman notes that when Shirley Jackson's story "The Lottery" was published in the June 28, 1948, issue of The New Yorker, it received a response that "no New Yorker story had ever received." Hundreds of letters poured in that were characterized by, as Jackson put it, "bewilderment, speculation and old-fashioned abuse."

Jackson's husband, the literary critic Stanley Edgar Hyman, 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 supplements. She believed that her books would speak for her clearly enough over the years." Hyman insisted the darker aspects of Jackson's works were not, as some critics claimed, the product of "personal, even neurotic, fantasies", but that Jackson intended, as "a sensitive and faithful anatomy of our times, fitting symbols for our distressing world of the concentration camp and the Bomb", to mirror humanity's Cold War-era fears. Jackson may even have taken pleasure in the subversive impact of her work, as revealed 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".

In 1965, Jackson died of heart failure in her sleep, at her home in North Bennington Vermont, at the age of 48.

Reviews

[Yinzadi]

Table of Contents
The Lottery
The Daemon Lover
The Possibility of Evil
Louisa, Please Come Home
Paranoia
The Honeymoon of Mrs. Smith
The Story We Used to Tell
The Sorcerer’s Apprentice
Jack the Ripper
The Beautiful Stranger
All She Said Was Yes
What a Thought
The Bus
Family Treasures
A Visit
The Good Wife
The Man in the Woods
Home
The Summer People
The Missing Girl