Shirley Jackson: A Master of Modern Gothic

Shirley Jackson: A Master of Modern Gothic

by Olivia Salter

Shirley Jackson, born on December 14, 1916, in San Francisco, California, is one of the most influential American writers of the 20th century. Renowned for her works of horror and psychological suspense, Jackson's writing is characterized by its exploration of human nature's darker aspects, societal norms, and the thin veneer of normalcy that conceals deep-seated fears and neuroses.

Early Life and Education

Shirley Jackson grew up in a middle-class family and exhibited a passion for writing from an early age. Her relationship with her mother was fraught with tension, which significantly influenced her later works. Jackson attended the University of Rochester before transferring to Syracuse University, where she majored in English and graduated in 1940. It was at Syracuse that she met her future husband, Stanley Edgar Hyman, a literary critic.

Literary Career

Jackson's first novel, "The Road Through the Wall," was published in 1948, the same year as her seminal short story "The Lottery." Published in The New Yorker, "The Lottery" caused a significant stir for its shocking portrayal of a small town's annual ritual of human sacrifice. The story's exploration of conformity, tradition, and violence remains relevant and widely studied.

Jackson's novels often blend the mundane with the macabre. "Hangsaman" (1951) and "The Bird's Nest" (1954) delve into themes of identity and psychological distress. However, it was "The Haunting of Hill House" (1959) that cemented her reputation as a master of gothic horror. This novel, considered one of the finest ghost stories ever written, delves into themes of isolation, fear, and the supernatural, and has been adapted into several films and television series.

Another notable work is "We Have Always Lived in the Castle" (1962), a darkly humorous and unsettling novel about two sisters living in near-total isolation after the mysterious deaths of their family members. The book explores themes of persecution, ostracism, and the fragile boundary between reality and madness.

Personal Life

Jackson and Hyman moved to North Bennington, Vermont, where they raised four children. Their home life was unconventional, filled with intellectual pursuits and lively debates. Despite her professional success, Jackson struggled with personal demons, including anxiety, depression, and health issues, exacerbated by her heavy smoking and prescription drug use.

Legacy and Impact

Shirley Jackson passed away on August 8, 1965, at the age of 48, from heart failure. Her work has continued to influence generations of writers and filmmakers. Stephen King, Neil Gaiman, and Joyce Carol Oates, among others, have cited her as a significant influence on their writing.

In recent years, there has been a resurgence of interest in Jackson's work, with new adaptations and a growing recognition of her contribution to American literature. Her ability to blend the ordinary with the eerie and her incisive critique of societal norms have ensured her place as a luminary in the world of gothic fiction and beyond.

In conclusion, Shirley Jackson's legacy as a pioneering writer of psychological horror and modern gothic fiction endures. Her keen insights into the human condition, combined with her ability to evoke dread and unease, have left an indelible mark on literature. Through her stories, Jackson continues to challenge and captivate readers, reminding us of the dark complexities lurking beneath the surface of everyday life.

Also see:

• Shirley Jackson's Books at Amazon

Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) Biography

 

Virginia WOOLF
(1882-1941)

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Wikipedia article for Virginia Woolf

Virginia Woolf was an English writer and essayist. We have most of her works at this site and they consistently rank as some of the most popular ebooks accessed. At the bottom of this page you will find a few snippets of her writing.

The article on Woolf at Wikipedia states that she "is considered one of the greatest innovators in the English language. In her works she experimented with stream-of-consciousness, the underlying psychological as well as emotional motives of characters, and the various possibilities of fractured narrative and chronology. In the words of E. M. Forster, she pushed the English language 'a little further against the dark,' and her literary achievements and creativity are influential even today."

Major Works of Virginia Woolf: The Voyage Out (Novel--1915) Night and Day (Novel--1919) Monday or Tuesday (Short Stories--1921) Jacob's Room (Novel--1922) Mrs Dalloway (Novel--1925) The Common Reader (Essays--1925) To the Lighthouse (Novel--1927) Orlando: A Biography (Novel--1928) A Room of One's Own (Essay--1929) The Waves (Novel--1931) Flush: A Biography (1933) The Common Reader Second Series (Essays--1935) The Years (Novel 1937) Three Guineas (Essay--1938) Between the Acts (Novel 1941) Collected Essays Collected Short Stories

Contents of Virginia Woolf's Short Story and Essay Collections

ESSAYS	SHORT STORIES
THE COMMON READER (1925) The Common Reader The Pastors and Chaucer On not knowing Greek The Elizabethan Lumber Room Notes on an Elizabethan Play Montaigne The Duchess of Newcastle Rambling round Evelyn Defoe Addison Lives of the Obscure--Taylors and Edgeworths Lives of the Obscure--Laetitia Pilkington Jane Austin Modern Fiction Jayne Eyre' and 'Wuthering Heights' George Eliot The Russian Point of View Outlines--Miss Mitford Outlines--Bentley Outlines--Lady Dorothy Nevill Outlines--Archbishop Thomson The Patron and the Crocus The Modern Essay Joseph Conrad How it strikes a Contemporary THE COMMON READER: SECOND SERIES (1932) The Strange Elizabethans Donne After Three Centuries "The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia" "Robinson Crusoe" Dorothy Osborne's "Letters" Swift's "Journal of Stella" The "Sentimental Journey" Lord Chesterfield's Letters to his Son Two Parsons: James Woodforde; John Skinner Dr. Burney's Evening Party Jack Mytton De Quincey's Autobiography Four Figures: Cowper and Lady Austen; Beau    Brummell; Mary Wollstonecraft; Dorothy Wordsworth William Hazlitt Geraldine and Jane "Aurora Leigh" The Niece of an Earl George Gissing The Novels of George Meredith "I am Christina Rossetti" The Novels of Thomas Hardy How Should One Read a Book? THE DEATH OF THE MOTH AND OTHER ESSAYS (1942) The Death Of The Moth Evening Over Sussex: Reflections in a Motor Car Three Pictures Old Mrs. Grey Street Haunting: A London Adventure "Twelfth Night" at the Old Vic Madame de Sévigné The Humane Art Two Antiquaries: Walpole and Cole The Rev. William Cole: A Letter The Historian and "The Gibbon" Reflections at Sheffield Place The Man at the Gate Sara Coleridge "Not One Of Us" Henry James 1. Within the Rim 2. The Old Order 3. The Letters of Henry James George Moore The Novels of E. M. Forster Middlebrow The Art of Biography Craftsmanship A Letter to a Young Poet Why? Professions for Women Thoughts on Peace in an Air Raid THE CAPTAIN'S DEATH BED AND OTHER ESSAYS (1950) Editorial Note Oliver Goldsmith White's Selborne Life Itself Crabbe Selina Trimmer The Captain's Death Bed Ruskin The Novels Of Turgenev Half Of Thomas Hardy Leslie Stephen Mr. Conrad: A Conversation The Cosmos Walter Raleigh Mr. Bennett And Mrs. Brown All About Books Reviewing Modern Letters Reading The Cinema Walter Sickert Flying Over London The Sun And The Fish Gas Thunder At Wembley Memories Of A Working Women's Guild	MONDAY OR TUESDAY (1919) A Haunted House A Society Monday or Tuesday An Unwritten Novel The String Quartet Blue & Green Kew Gardens The Mark on the Wall A HAUNTED HOUSE (1944) A Haunted House Monday or Tuesday An Unwritten Novel The String Quartet Kew Gardens The Mark on the Wall The New Dress The Shooting Party Lappin and Lappinova Solid Objects The Lady in the Looking-Glass The Duchess and the Jeweller Moments of Being. "Slater's Pins have no Points" The Man who Loved his Kind The Searchlight The Legacy Together and Apart A Summing Up THE COMPLETE SHORTER FICTION (1985) Phyllis and Rosamond The Mysterious Case of Miss V. The Journal of Mistress Joan Martyn Memoirs of a Novelist The Mark on the Wall Kew Gardens The Evening Party Solid Objects Sympathy An Unwritten Novel A Haunted House  A Society Monday or Tuesday The String Quartet Blue & Green A Woman's College from Outside In the Orchard Mrs Dalloway in Bond Street Nurse Lugton's Curtain The Widow and the Parrot: A True Story The New Dress Happiness Ancestors The Introduction Together and Apart The Man who Loved his Kind A Simple Melody A Summing Up Moments of Being. "Slater's Pins have no Points" The Lady in the Looking-Glass The Fascination of the Pool Three Pictures Scenes from the Life of a British Naval Officer Miss Pryme Ode Written Partly in Prose Portraits Uncle Vanya The Duchess and the Jeweller The Shooting Party Lappin and Lappinova The Searchlight Gypsy, the Mongrel The Legacy The Symbol The Watering Place

 

Extracts from Virginia Woolf's writing

Thus, glancing round the bookshop, we make other such sudden capricious friendships with the unknown and the vanished whose only record is, for example, this little book of poems, so fairly printed, so finely engraved, too, with a portrait of the author. For he was a poet and drowned untimely, and his verse, mild as it is and formal and sententious, sends forth still a frail fluty sound like that of a piano organ played in some back street resignedly by an old Italian organ-grinder in a corduroy jacket. There are travellers, too, row upon row of them, still testifying, indomitable spinsters that they were, to the discomforts that they endured and the sunsets they admired in Greece when Queen Victoria was a girl. A tour in Cornwall with a visit to the tin mines was thought worthy of voluminous record. People went slowly up the Rhine and did portraits of each other in Indian ink, sitting reading on deck beside a coil of rope; they measured the pyramids; were lost to civilization for years; converted negroes in pestilential swamps. This packing up and going off, exploring deserts and catching fevers, settling in India for a lifetime, penetrating even to China and then returning to lead a parochial life at Edmonton, tumbles and tosses upon the dusty floor like an uneasy sea, so restless the English are, with the waves at their very door. The waters of travel and adventure seem to break upon little islands of serious effort and lifelong industry stood in jagged column upon the floor. In these piles of puce-bound volumes with gilt monograms on the back, thoughtful clergymen expound the gospels; scholars are to be heard with their hammers and their chisels chipping clear the ancient texts of Euripides and Aeschylus. Thinking, annotating, expounding goes on at a prodigious rate all around us and over everything, like a punctual, everlasting tide, washes the ancient sea of fiction. Innumerable volumes tell how Arthur loved Laura and they were separated and they were unhappy and then they met and they were happy ever after, as was the way when Victoria ruled these islands.

From "Street Haunting: A London Adventure"

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At the thought of all those women working year after year and finding it hard to get two thousand pounds together, and as much as they could do to get thirty thousand pounds, we burst out in scorn at the reprehensible poverty of our sex. What had our mothers been doing then that they had no wealth to leave us? Powdering their noses? Looking in at shop windows? Flaunting in the sun at Monte Carlo? There were some photographs on the mantelpiece. Mary's mother--if that was her picture--may have been a wastrel in her spare time (she had thirteen children by a minister of the church), but if so her gay and dissipated life had left too few traces of its pleasures on her face. She was a homely body; an old lady in a plaid shawl which was fastened by a large cameo; and she sat in a basket-chair, encouraging a spaniel to look at the camera, with the amused, yet strained expression of one who is sure that the dog will move directly the bulb is pressed. Now if she had gone into business; had become a manufacturer of artificial silk or a magnate on the Stock Exchange; if she had left two or three hundred thousand pounds to Fernham, we could have been sitting at our ease to-night and the subject of our talk might have been archaeology, botany, anthropology, physics, the nature of the atom, mathematics, astronomy, relativity, geography. If only Mrs Seton and her mother and her mother before her had learnt the great art of making money and had left their money, like their fathers and their grandfathers before them, to found fellowships and lectureships and prizes and scholarships appropriated to the use of their own sex, we might have dined very tolerably up here alone off a bird and a bottle of wine; we might have looked forward without undue confidence to a pleasant and honourable lifetime spent in the shelter of one of the liberally endowed professions. We might have been exploring or writing; mooning about the venerable places of the earth; sitting contemplative on the steps of the Parthenon, or. going at ten to an office and coming home comfortably at half-past four to write a little poetry. Only, if Mrs Seton and her like had gone into business at the age of fifteen, there would have been--that was the snag in the argument--no Mary. What, I asked, did Mary think of t hat? There between the curtains was the October night, calm and lovely, with a star or two caught in the yellowing trees. Was she ready to resign her share of it and her memories (for they had been a happy family, though a large one) of games and quarrels up in Scotland, which she is never tired of praising for the fineness of its air and the quality of its cakes, in order that Fernham might have been endowed with fifty thousand pounds or so by a stroke of the pen? For, to endow a college would necessitate the suppression of families altogether. Making a fortune and bearing thirteen children--no human being could stand it. Consider the facts, we said. First there are nine months before the baby is born. Then the baby is born. Then there are three or four months spent in feeding the baby. After the baby is fed there are certainly five years spent in playing with the baby. You cannot, it seems, let children run about the streets. People who have seen them running wild in Russia say that the sight is not a pleasant one. People say, too, that human nature takes its shape in the years between one and five. If Mrs Seton, I said, had been making money, what sort of memories would you have had of games and quarrels? What would you have known of Scotland, and its fine air and cakes and all the rest of it? But it is useless to ask these questions, because you would never have come into existence at all. Moreover, it is equally useless to ask what might have happened if Mrs Seton and her mother and her mother before her had amassed great wealth and laid it under the foundations of college and library, because, in the first place, to earn money was impossible for them, and in the second, had it been possible, the law denied them the right to possess what money they earned. It is only for the last forty-eight years that Mrs Seton has had a penny of her own. For all the centuries before that it would have been her husband's property--a thought which, perhaps, may have had its share in keeping Mrs Seton and her mothers off the Stock Exchange. Every penny I earn, they may have said, will be taken from me and disposed of according to my husband's wisdom--perhaps to found a scholarship or to endow a fellowship in Balliol or Kings, so that to earn money, even if I could earn money, is not a matter that interests me very greatly. I had better leave it to my husband.

From "A Room of One's Own"

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But these contributions to the dangerous and fascinating subject of the psychology of the other sex--it is one, I hope, that you will investigate when you have five hundred a year of your own--were interrupted by the necessity of paying the bill. It came to five shillings and ninepence. I gave the waiter a ten-shilling note and he went to bring me change. There was another ten-shilling note in my purse; I noticed it, because it is a fact that still takes my breath away the power of my purse to breed ten-shilling notes automatically. I open it and there they are. Society gives me chicken and coffee, bed and lodging, in return for a certain number of pieces of paper which were left me by an aunt, for no other reason than that I share her name.

 From "A Room of One's Own"

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Ambrose Bierce Biography

Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce was born on June 24, 1842 in the settlement of Horse Cave, Ohio. He died November 30, 1913 in Mexico.  He was the tenth of thirteen children born to Marcus Aurelius and Laura Sherwood Bierce.

The Bierces moved to Indiana during Ambrose's childhood, settling in Warsaw and then Elkhart.

Bierce benefited a great deal from his father's farmhouse library, and late in life declared it to be his most important early educational influence.

Another early influence on Bierce was his uncle, General Lucius Verus Bierce of Akron, Ohio. Ambrose observed carefully the man's idealism, oratorical skills, public service, and social activism. All his life, Bierce held up the career of his uncle as a model for his own.

When about seventeen, Bierce enrolled at the Kentucky Military Institute. There he learned about military subjects and appears to have studied topographical engineering. He adapted well to military life and discipline.

He left the Institute on the eve of the Civil War, returning to Indiana in 1860.

Known for his satirical wit and sardonic view of human nature, Ambrose Bierce earned the nickname "Bitter Bierce." His mocking cynicism is on full display in The Devil's Dictionary, a work that originally appeared under the title The Cynic’s Word Book. This humorous and often strikingly insightful book is always worth a casual visit as he takes his turn handing out striking proclamations about human nature and daily life.

As a short story writer, Bierce gave us many treasures. His most famous and widely read short story, An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge is brilliantly written. One doesn’t need an expert to discern that, but for good measure Kurt Vonnegut considered An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge to be the greatest American short story and a work of flawless American genius. Though more predictable, A Horseman in the Sky is also stamped with literary genius.

In 1913, during the Mexican Revolutionary War, Bierce traveled to Mexico to gain first-hand experience of the conflict. He disappeared without a trace while traveling with rebel troops. Prior to his mysterious disappearance, Bierce served in the Civil War in the Union's 9th Indiana Regiment, gaining newspaper attention during the "first battle" of Philippi for his daring rescue, under fire, of a gravely wounded comrade at the Battle of Rich Mountain. He suffered a head injury in 1864 at the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain, taking a furlow, then later leaving the Army. He was commissioned Lieutenant for the Army in San Francisco, where he remained for many years, eventually becoming famous as a contributor and editor for a number of local newspapers and periodicals.

Bierce became one of the most influential writers on the West Coast, working for Hearst's The San Francisco Examiner, starting in 1887 when he published his column called "The Prattle," a searing criticism that embroiled the newspaper in several controversies that Hearst had to smooth over.

Bierce's short stories are based on the terrible things he had seen during war time, particularly The Boarded Window, Killed at Resaca, and Chickamauga.

Along with war and ghost stories, Bierce published several volumes of poetry. Favoring the ironic style of the grotesque, Fantastic Fables was followed by his more famous work, drawn from occasional newspaper items, The Devil's Dictionary, a satirical book of definitions published in 1906. This was the entire seventh volume of his twelve volume set, Collected Works, published in 1909.

At least three films have been made based on An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge. The Bridge, a silent film in 1929, and two versions of Twilight Zone episodes in 1964, one in French, the other American. Most recently, the ABC television series Lost episode entitled "The Long Con" is based on this Bierce story.

We hope you will enjoy his well-known works and also venture deeper into his collection to uncover your own favorites.

Kate Chopin Biography

Word Count:  610

Kate Chopin, born Katherine O'Flaherty in St. Louis, Missouri on February 8, 1850, is considered one of the first feminist authors of the 20th century. She was following a rather conventional path as a housewife until an unfortunate tragedy -- the untimely death of her husband -- altered the course of her life. She was a talented and prolific short story writer but is best known for her novel The Awakening (1899), a hauntingly prescient tale of a woman unfulfilled by the mundane yet highly celebrated "feminine role," and her painful realization that the constraints of her gender blocked her ability to seek a more fulfilling life.

Chopin placed most of her stories in north central Louisiana, many in Natchitoches, and she published two significant short story collections; Bayou Folk in 1894, and then A Night in Acadie in 1897. The reader will find gems in both collections.

Some argue that modern feminism was borne on her pages, and one needs to look no further than her 1894 short story The Story of an Hour to support the claim. The reader should note the relationship of the leading figure in that story to the circumstances of Kate Chopin’s own life, where the death of her own husband started a process that would ultimately push her beyond the roles of wife and mother of six and on to the life of an artist. After The Story of an Hour a reader would do well to balance the scale and turn their attention to Regret -- a short story blessed with love and borne from a mother's heart.

Desiree's Baby (1893), and The Storm (1898), which is a sequel to her story At the 'Cadian Ball (1892), are also amongst her most celebrated short stories.

Chopin's writing career began after her husband died on their Louisiana plantation in 1882 and she was struggling financially. Her mother convinced Kate to move back to St. Louis, but died shortly thereafter leaving her alone. Now Chopin, suffering from the loss of her husband and mother, was advised by her obstetrician and family friend to fight her state of depression by taking up writing as a source of therapeutic healing, a way to focus her energy and provide Chopin with a source of income. She took the advice to heart.

By the early 1890s, Kate Chopin was writing short stories, articles, and translations which appeared in periodicals and literary magazines regionally based in St. Louis -- she was perceived as a "local color" writer, but her literary qualities were discounted. Her novel The Awakening, (1899) was considered too far ahead of its time and Chopin was discouraged by the literary criticism and that she had not been accepted as an author, so she turned to short story writing almost exclusively thereafter.

Chopin embraced a number of writing styles, taking into account her ancestry of Irish and French descent, and her years with Creole and Cajun influences in Louisiana. Slavery and women's rights were realities that she incorporated in many of her stories and sketches, portraying women in a less than conventional manner, with individual wants and needs. Perhaps in many ways autobiographical, her exploration of women's independence was not celebrated until many years later. Chopin was in many ways, a woman before her time.

Readers interested the feminist aspects of Kate Chopin's works will also wish to investigate plays and short stories from Susan Glaspell and Charlotte Perkins Gilman's semi-autobiographical sketch The Yellow Wallpaper.

But it would be a grave mistake to dismiss Chopin as "a feminist" writer. She was a first-class writer and her ability to raise life from a blank page knows few equals.