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  • Published: 9 November 2009
  • ISBN: 9780141191447
  • Imprint: Penguin Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 256
  • RRP: $22.99

The Haunting of Hill House




'As nearly perfect a haunted-house tale as I have ever read' - Stephen King

Four seekers have arrived at the rambling old pile known as Hill House: Dr. Montague, an occult scholar looking for solid evidence of psychic phenomena; Theodora, his lovely and lighthearted assistant; Luke, the adventurous future inheritor of the estate; and Eleanor, a friendless, fragile young woman with a dark past. As they begin to cope with chilling, even horrifying occurrences beyond their control or understanding, they cannot possibly know what lies ahead. For Hill House is gathering its powers - and soon it will choose one of them to make its own.

  • Published: 9 November 2009
  • ISBN: 9780141191447
  • Imprint: Penguin Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 256
  • RRP: $22.99

Other books in the series

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 Haunting of Hill House

The scariest book I’ve ever read ... I read it one night next to my sleeping wife and found myself unable to move, unable to go to bed, unable to do anything except keep reading and praying the shadows around me didn’t move

Carmen Maria Machado, The New York Times

Shirley Jackson’s "The Haunting of Hill House" beats them all: a maleficent house, real human protagonists, everything half-seen or happening in the dark. It scared me as a teenager and it haunts me still, as does Eleanor, the girl who comes to stay

Neil Gaiman, The New York Times

the haunted house novel. All others stand in its shadow

Paul Tremblay, author of A Head Full of Ghosts

The Haunting of Hill House rewrote horror’s rules

Alison Flood, Guardian

Stepping into Hill House is like stepping into the mind of a madman; it isn't long before you weird yourself out

Stephen King

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

The world of Shirley Jackson is eerie and unforgettable ... She is a true master

A. M. Homes

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

Jonathan Lethem

Her books penetrate keenly to the terrible truths which sometimes hide behind comfortable fictions, to the treachery beneath cheery neighborhood faces and the plain manners of country folk

Donna Tartt

She is the finest master...of the cryptic, haunted tale

The New York Times Book Review

A novel which at one stroke puts her unquestionably among the great masters of the genre . . . as spine-chilling . . . as anything Edgar Allan Poe dreamed up.

Peter Green, Daily Telegraph