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  • Published: 20 March 2017
  • ISBN: 9780141983202
  • Imprint: Penguin Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 496
  • RRP: $22.99

Just an Ordinary Day



A remarkable collection of dark, funny and haunting short stories from the inimitable author of 'The Lottery'

An anxious devil, a malicious old woman and a mid-century Jack the Ripper; a pursuit though a nightmarish city, a small boy's thrilling train ride with a female thief, and a town where the possibility of evil lurks behind perfect rose bushes. This is the world of Shirley Jackson, by turns frightening, funny, strange and unforgettably revealed in this collection of brilliant stories from the author of 'The Lottery'.

  • Published: 20 March 2017
  • ISBN: 9780141983202
  • Imprint: Penguin Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 496
  • RRP: $22.99

About the author

Shirley Jackson

Shirley Jackson was born in San Francisco in 1916. She first received wide critical acclaim for her short story 'The Lottery', which was published in 1949. Her novels - which include The Sundial, The Bird's Nest, Hangsaman, The Road through the Wall, We Have Always Lived in the Castle and The Haunting of Hill House - are characterised by her use of realistic settings for tales that often involve elements of horror and the occult. Raising Demons and Life Among the Savages are her two works of nonfiction. Come Along With Me is a collection of stories, lectures, and part of the novel she was working on when she died in 1965.

Also by Shirley Jackson

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Praise for Just an Ordinary Day

Jackson at her best: plumbing the extraordinary from the depths of mid-twentieth-century common. [Just an Ordinary Day] is a gift to a new generation

San Francisco Chronicle

For Jackson devotees, as well as first-time readers, this is a feast ... A virtuoso collection

Publishers Weekly

One of the great practitioners of the literature of the darker impulses

Paul Theroux, The New York Times Book Review

The world of Shirley Jackson is eerie and unforgettable

A. M. Homes

A dark, disturbing, wonderful treat ... A collection to press on people and demand they read

Alison Flood, The Bookseller