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Shirley Jackson

Major works:
“The Lottery” • “The Daemon Lover” • Life Among the Savages • The Haunting of Hill House • We Have Always Lived in the Castle
Excerpt from
Read a passage from The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
The Haunting of Hill House
Shirley JacksonNo live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.