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Dark Tales Paperback – October 10, 2017
Shirley Jackson (Author) Find all the books, read about the author, and more. See search results for this author |
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After the publication of her short story “The Lottery” in the New Yorker in 1948 received an unprecedented amount of attention, Shirley Jackson was quickly established as a master horror storyteller. This collection of classic and newly reprinted stories provides readers with more of her unsettling, dark tales, including the “The Possibility of Evil” and “The Summer People.” In these deliciously dark stories, the daily commute turns into a nightmarish game of hide and seek, the loving wife hides homicidal thoughts and the concerned citizen might just be an infamous serial killer. In the haunting world of Shirley Jackson, nothing is as it seems and nowhere is safe, from the city streets to the crumbling country pile, and from the small-town apartment to the dark, dark woods. There’s something sinister in suburbia.
For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
- Print length208 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherPenguin Classics
- Publication dateOctober 10, 2017
- Dimensions5.08 x 0.55 x 7.74 inches
- ISBN-100143132008
- ISBN-13978-0143132004
- Lexile measure1100L
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Product details
- Publisher : Penguin Classics (October 10, 2017)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 208 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0143132008
- ISBN-13 : 978-0143132004
- Lexile measure : 1100L
- Item Weight : 5.6 ounces
- Dimensions : 5.08 x 0.55 x 7.74 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #80,510 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #137 in Horror Anthologies (Books)
- #532 in Ghost Thrillers
- #599 in Gothic Fiction
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

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).
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Since I once read a huge book of Ms. Jackson's stories, I had actually already read all of the ones in this book, but didn't remember what happened in all of them. (One of the "blessings" of getting older--you don't always remember how stories and TV show episodes ended.) I think my absolute favorite one in this collection is about the girl who ran away from home right before her sister was getting married. She didn't go very far, and her family was still searching for her years later, when she ran into someone from her hometown . . . .
Each tale here is, indeed, tinged with shadow and the sinister. Psychological horror without monsters, but the occasional spirit makes an appearance.
Each story hold up and reads quickly, but you can savor each, as well. I found myself re-reading passages and entire stories to feel a warm...chill(?) settle in, if that makes sense.
Most of these stories I'd read in other Jackson collections at some point, but years ago, so they were mostly like reading them for the first time. The foreward by Ottessa Moshfegh is perfectly suited to the tone & tenor of these stories. There's 17 stories in the collection, & the curator of the collection really knows how to bend the arc of narrative with the arrangement of the pieces. It opens & closes with a banger -- The Possibility of Evil (with a shiveringly wicked closing line) & The Summer People, (also with a hell of a last line) that made me creeped out at the thought of my parents (you guessed it...in a cabin by the lake in New England.) The stories in the middle are evenly paced and alternate between the mildly unnerving (Louisa Please Come Home) to the downright creepy (Jack the Ripper.) For me, however, the unsung gem of this collection is The Beautiful Stranger, which is poignant in the helplessness the reader feels at the ending -- particularly so if you've ever had a mean husband & wished that a kind one would just up and take his place. In a way, I feel like this collection of Jackson's work bears a lot in common with Rod Serling's writing for The Twilight Zone -- I could easily envision most of these stories as an episode. I recently finished Jackson's biography, and this was a great way to follow up.
Top reviews from other countries

Dark Tales is an extension of her cannon. She has the perfect ability to find the unnerving in everyday experiences, with a tone between 1950s Americana and medieval folklore.



