From the short story «The Lottery» to the masterworks _The Haunting of Hill House_ and _We Have Always Lived in the Castle_, Shirley Jackson’s popular, often bestselling works experimented with popular generic forms (melodrama, folktale, horror, the Gothic, and the Weird) to create a uniquely apocalyptic vision of America and its contradictions. With a Foreword by award-winning Jackson biographer Ruth Franklin, this collection features comprehensive critical engagement with Jackson’s works, including those that have received less scholarly attention. Among these are the novels _The Road Through the Wall_, _The Bird’s Nest_, and _Hangsaman_, as well as Jackson’s historical study, _The Witchcraft of Salem Village_. Also included are essays on Jackson’s darkly humorous collections _Life Among the Savages_ and _Raising Demons_, on Stephen King’s «literary friendship» with Jackson, on the little-known film adaptations _Lizzie_ (1957) and _Hosszú Alkony_ (_Long Twilight_) (1997), and the first-ever extended analysis devoted to Jackson’s unpublished satirical cartoon sketches. The collection’s five sections focus on Jackson’s style, key themes, and influence; her politics and poetics of space; her treatment of the «monstrous» mother and monstrousness of motherhood; her representations of outsiders and minorities; and moving-image adaptations of her work.