The Haunting of Hill House (Stephen King Horror Library) by Shirley Jackson

[gilda_elise]

Four seekers have come to Hill House, a scary old abandoned mansion: Dr. Montague, an occult scholar who had been looking for an honestly haunted house all his life; Theodora, a lovely and lighthearted girl there mostly on a lark; Luke, the adventurous future heir of Hill House; and Eleanor, a strange and lonely woman well acquainted with poltergeists and other psychic phenomena. At first their stay seems destined to be merely a spooky encounter with inexplicable noises and slamming doors. But Hill House is gathering up powers and will soon choose one of them to make its own.
The Haunting Of Hill House is full of horror and mystification and a wit that mixes laughter with chills. Its publication in 1959 confirmed Shirley Jackson as a master at portraying the secret vagaries of the mind, and as a brilliant stylist capable of interjecting the conventions of horror with a psychological complexity not encountered since Henry James. "It is the character of Eleanor and Shirley Jackson's depiction of it that elevates The Haunting Of Hill House into the ranks of the great supernatural novels," Stephen King writes in the introduction to this exclusive Stephen King Horror Library edition. "Indeed, it seems to me that it and James's The Turn Of The Screw are the only two great novels of the supernatural in the last hundred years.”


“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 thee, walked alone.”

So begins, and ends, the story of Hill House, and no more frightening words have been written. They give the reader a template of what is to come. What is real and what is imagination is always in question; is Eleanor crazy or being controlled by the house? Is Hill House evil or merely a scapegoat of its damaged occupiers? The answers depend on the reader.

And for the reader’s further enjoyment, there is an absolutely wonderful movie that’s just about as good as the book. Not the truly terrible 1999 remake, but the beautifully filmed 1963 version.






Links are to more information regarding each book or author, not to the review.

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2. Polaris (Alex Benedict #2) by Jack McDevitt
3. How Democracies Die by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt
4. Mikhail Baryshnikov's Stories From My Childhood: Beloved Fairy Tales from the Queen to Cinderella by Mikhail Baryshnikov
5. The Fateful Lightning (Civil War: 1861-1865, Western Theater #4) by Jeff Shaara
6. Circling the Sun by Paula McLain
7. The Petticoat Men by Barbara Ewing
8. Lily Pond: Four Years with a Family of Beavers by Hope Ryden
9. Running with the Demon (The Word & The Void #1) by Terry Brooks
10. The Gentle Giants of Ganymede (Giants #2) by James P. Hogan
11. Ararat (Ben Walker #1) by Christopher Golden
12. If It Bleeds by Stephen King
13. American Ulysses: A Life of Ulysses S. Grant by Ronald C. White Jr.
14. The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates
15. Desert Queen: The Extraordinary Life of Gertrude Bell Adventurer, Adviser to Kings by Janet Wallach
16. Snowblind by Christopher Golden
17. Women of Ashdon (Bridges Over Time #3) by Valerie Anand
18. Unworthy Republic: The Dispossession of Native Americans and the Road to Indian Territory by Claudio Saunt
19. The Family Plot by Cherie Priest
20. The German Girl by Armando Lucas Correa (translated by Nick Caistor)
21. Roses are White by Lesley Lambert
22. Giants' Star (Giants #3) by James P. Hogan
23. Duma Key by Stephen King
24. Magic In My Shoes by Constance Savery
25. The Breach by M.T. Hill
26. We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler
27. In the Region of the Summer Stars (Eirlandia #1) by Stephen R. Lawhead
28. Later by Stephen King
29. The Bone Doll's Twin (Tamír Triad #1) by Lynn Flewelling
30. The Threshold by Marlys Millhiser
31. Echoes of Home: A Ghost Story by M.L. Rayner
32. The Picture of Dorian Gray (Talking Classics) by Oscar Wilde, Martin Shaw (Reader)
33. The Reign of Wolf 21: The Saga of Yellowstone’s Legendary Druid Pack (The Alpha Wolves of Yellowstone #2) by Rick McIntyre, Marc Bekoff
34. A Knight of the Word (The Word & The Void #2) by Terry Brooks
35. The Mummy (Ramses the Damned #1) by Anne Rice
36. City of the Lost by Will Adams
37. The Summer Queen: A Medieval Tale of Eleanor of Aquitaine, Queen of France by Elizabeth Chadwick
38. Last Train from Perdition (I Travel by Night #2) by Robert R. McCammon
39. Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
40. The Chalk Man by C.J. Tudor
41. Erebus: The Story of a Ship by Michael Palin
42. The Shining (The Shining #1) by Stephen King
43. In a Sunburned Country by Bill Bryson
44. Gwendy's Magic Feather (The Button Box #2) by Richard Chizmar
45. The Undocumented Americans by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio
46. Harvest Home by Tom Tryon
47. The Cider House Rules by John Irving
48. The Clover Girls by Viola Shipman
49. The Hiding Place by C. J. Tudor
50. To Serve Them All My Days by R.F. Delderfield
51. The City Where We Once Lived by Eric Barnes
52. The Cleanup by John Skipp & Craig Spector
53. Pet Sematary by Stephen King
54. Gad’s Hall (Gad’s Hall #1) by Norah Lofts
55. The Listener by Robert R. McCammon




56. https://www.google.com/books/edition/Frankenstein, Or the Modern Prometheus by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
57. The Haunting of Hill House (Stephen King Horror Library) by Shirley Jackson






Free But Halloweeny - The Haunting of Hill House (Stephen King Horror Library) by Shirley Jackson




I Read Horror Year-Round List

*Winter Theme, or winter appearance on the cover (snow, ice, etc.):
1. Ararat by Christopher Golden

*Ghosts or spirits:
1. The Family Plot by Cherie Priest
2. Gad’s Hall by Norah Lofts

*Psychological:
1. The Chalk Man by C.J. Tudor
2. The Hiding Place by C. J. Tudor

*Monster or Monsters:
1. Snowblind by Christopher Golden

*A body of water (featured in story, on cover, or in title):
1. Duma Key by Stephen King
2. The Listener by Robert McCammon

*Really scary book cover:
1. The Breach by M.T. Hill
2. Pet Sematary by Stephen King

*Woman on cover:
1. Later by Stephen King
2. The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

*Written by a woman:
1. The Mummy (Ramses the Damned #1) by Anne Rice
2. The Burning Girls by C. J. Tudor
3. Frankenstein, Or the Modern Prometheus by Mary Shelley

*Written by a best-selling horror author:
1. If It Bleeds by Stephen King
2. The Shining by Stephen King
3. The Cleanup by John Skipp and Craig Spector

*Written by an indie author:
1. Echoes of Home by M.L. Rayner

*Historical horror (must be an historical novel written by a contemporary author):
1. Last Train From Perdition by Robert McCammon

*Folk horror:
1. Harvest Home by Thomas Tryon

Comments

[spikesgirl58.livejournal.com]

The book is so much scarier than any of the movies to date!

[gilda-elise.livejournal.com]

It is a scary book. I rarely get the feeling that maybe I shouldn't be reading it right before I go to sleep, but I got it with this one.

[spikesgirl58.livejournal.com]

Shirley Jackson is the best because she doesn't give you all the answers, just enough of a hint to get your mind racing. I love We Have Always Lived in the Castle

[gilda-elise.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure if I've read that one. I'll have to check it out.

[spikesgirl58.livejournal.com]

It still remains my favorite, even after all these years. Movie (and play) sucked, though.

[lee-the-t.livejournal.com]

I should read it. I've watched multiple movie versions and none of them really hooked me. The old one was too slow for me (at least at the time); the newer ones too gory, not spooky enough.

[gilda-elise.livejournal.com]

I loved the original movie. Maybe because I was very young when I first watched it, it made a huge impression. And I loved how you never actually saw anything. Was it in Eleanor's mind? Was she causing the ghostly manifestations? We'll never know. But the book isn't quite so circumspect.

[catalenamara.livejournal.com]

I listened to the audio book a few months - very good reader! It'd been years since I read the book, and I found it even more powerful than I did on my original reading.

[gilda-elise.livejournal.com]

It definitely catches hold of you. I'd actually never read the book before, those I've watched the original movie at least a dozen times. I was pleasantly surprised at how close to the book the movie was.