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Dark Tales

by Shirley Jackson

Unease in familiar places

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Paperback New English

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AlbakiReads Editorial

Unease in familiar places

This collection brings together Shirley Jackson stories including “The Possibility of Evil” and “The Summer People.” Its scenarios place menace amid recognizable routines and settings: a commute becomes a game of hide-and-seek, domestic life conceals violent thoughts, and an apparently concerned citizen may be someone far more dangerous. The settings range from city streets and small-town apartments to country houses and woods, linking everyday surroundings with uncertainty about what—or who—is safe. The collection offers a compact entry into Jackson’s dark fiction through stories that unsettle ordinary expectations.

Good fit for readers who enjoy

  • Readers interested in Shirley Jackson’s short fiction.
  • Fans of horror rooted in everyday settings and social unease.
  • Readers seeking a collection that includes “The Possibility of Evil” and “The Summer People.”

Themes

The sinister within ordinary lifeDanger and deceptionSmall-town and suburban uneaseUncertainty about appearances

Based on publisher information and book metadata.

Book overview

For the first time in one volume, a collection of Shirley Jackson's scariest stories, with a foreword by PEN/Hemingway Award winner Ottessa Moshfegh

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.
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