English: We Have Always Lived in the Castle

Jackson was born in San Francisco in 1916 and brought up, with a younger brother, in one of the city’s affluent suburbs. Her parents were conservative country-club people, who regarded their high-strung child with some perplexity. Jackson identified herself early on as an outsider and as a writer.

Jackson was arguably most effective in crafting insidious, slow-to-develop stories that acquired menacing or mystifying dimensions incrementally.

THE LETTERS OF SHIRLEY JACKSON - The two most revealing documents in this hefty collection of unpublished letters written by the novelist Shirley Jackson were never sent. One was addressed to her mother, and the other to her husband, Stanley Edgar Hyman.

A full century after the birth of the author Shirley Jackson—who was born on Dec. 14, 1916—her name remains synonymous with the psychological drama of her stories and novels, most famously the Hunger Games precursor The Lottery.

So in case you haven’t read her yet and need a little nudge, or just want to trace the web of influence outward a few notches, here are a few great writers writing on the brilliance Shirley Jackson.

First published on June 18 1948, Shirley Jackson's most famous short story, The Lottery, can be read online on the New Yorker's website. A chilling tale of small-town Americana and no doubt the inspiration for The Hunger Games, The Lottery is gripping reading.