Biography

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Shirley Jackson was born on December 14, 1916, in San Francisco and died on August 8, 1965 at the age of 48.  She grew up in Burlingame, California, and began writing short stories when she was a young teenager.  When she was seventeen her family moved east and she attended the University of Rochester for a year before she dropped out.  In 1937 she attended Syracuse University, where she met her husband, and graduated in 1940.  In 1944, Shirley Jackson’s “Come Dance With Me in Ireland” was chosen for Best American Short Stories.  Shirley and her husband moved to Bennington, Vermont in 1948 after Stanley Hyman (her husband) was offered a teaching position at Bennington College.  The New Yorker published “The Lottery” that same year. The story obtained a lot of letters for The New Yorker, mostly hateful.  In 1949 she and her husband moved to Westport, Connecticut for Stanley Hyman’s job with The New Yorker.  They remained in Connecticut for a short period of time, in 1951 Shirley and Stanley moved back to Bennington, Vermont.  Again, one of her stories, “The Summer People”, was chosen for Best American Short Stories.  Her best-known novel, The Haunting of Hill House, was published in 1959.  “Louisa, Please” earned Shirley the Edgar Allen Poe Award in 1961, one of her few major awards.  Four years later she was awarded the Arent Pioneer Medal from Syracuse University for Outstanding Achievement.  Unfortunately she could not attend due to an illness.  She died unexpectedly from heart failure while taking an afternoon nap in her home.