Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House

Shirley Jackson was born in San Francisco, California on December 14, 1916 to Leslie H. Jackson and Geraldine Bugbee. Two years after the birth of her brother Barry, the family moved to Burlingame, California. In 1934, Jackson enrolled in the University of Rochester but withdrew two years later. Jackson continued to write while at home the following year then enrolled in Syracuse University in 1937, staying two years and publishing in campus magazines. Here she published her first story “Janice” in an issue of Threshold and became the fiction editor for the school’s humor magazine The Syracusan. She helped create a new magazine titled The Spectre with her colleagues June Mirken and Stanley Edgar Hyman. After graduation Hyman and Jackson wed and moved to New York, where Jackson wrote daily while picking up other various jobs. Jackson published her first novel The Road Through the Wall in 1948 and her famous short story “The Lottery” appeared in The New Yorker that same year. The Haunting of Hill House was published in 1959, which would go on to have two film adaptations. In 1965, Jackson died of heart failure while taking an afternoon nap at the age of 48 (Friedman).