We Have Always Lived in the Castle

Shirley Jackson

Oct 2009 · Penguin UK

About this ebook

'Her greatest book ... at once whimsical and harrowing, a miniaturist's charmingly detailed fantasy sketched inside a mausoleum ... the deeper we sink, the deeper we want to go' Donna Tartt

Living in the Blackwood family home with only her sister Constance and her Uncle Julian for company, Merricat just wants to preserve their delicate way of life. But ever since Constance was acquitted of murdering the rest of the family, the world isn't leaving the Blackwoods alone. And when Cousin Charles arrives, armed with overtures of friendship and a desperate need to get into the safe, Merricat must do everything in her power to protect the remaining family.

With an afterword by Joyce Carol Oates

'The world of Shirley Jackson is eerie and unforgettable ... She is a true master' A. M. Homes

'A masterpiece of Gothic suspense' Joyce Carol Oates

'If you haven't read We Have Always Lived in the Castle ... you have missed out on something marvellous' Neil Gaiman

Ratings and reviews

Another wonderfully well written and hauntingly brilliant book by Shirley Jackson.

very strange.

About the author

Shirley Jackson was born in California in 1916. When her short story, 'The Lottery', was first published in the New Yorker in 1948, readers were so horrified they sent her hate mail; it has since become one of the most iconic American stories of all time. Her first novel, The Road Through the Wall, was published in the same year and was followed by Hangsaman, The Bird's Nest, The Sundial, The Haunting of Hill House and We Have Always Lived in the Castle, widely seen as her masterpiece. In addition to her dark, brilliant novels, she wrote lightly fictionalized magazine pieces about family life with her four children and her husband, the critic Stanley Edgar Hyman. Shirley Jackson died in 1965.