Shirley Jackson is one of the greatest writers of weird fiction of all time. Her novels The Haunting of Hill House and We Have Always Lived in the Castle are landmark titles in the classic catalogue of acclaimed supernatural fiction. Her short story The Lottery has been widely anthologised since it was first published in 1948.

Dark Tales contains a collection of 17 short stories, most of them inspiring a disquieting sense of unease. Jackson captures a wonderful aura of Americana, with a welcome lack of pretentiousness. The writing is timeless, straightforward and deceptively ordinary, concealing a macabre and sometimes startling turn of phrase. Many of the stories have a vaguely surreal, yet coherent, feel, invoking the detached subtle qualities of a dream. There's a great deal going on beneath the prose; hinting at things unspoken, a suggestion of things beyond what seems outwardly apparent. Like Daphne du Maurier and Patricia Highsmith, Shirley Jackson also possessed a particular talent for documenting the little cruelties that go on in relationships, familial tensions and petty behavioural quirks, which lend the stories a dark emotional undercurrent.

As with any anthology or short story collection, not every story worked for me, but the ones that did, by far make up for the ones that didn't. Shirley Jackson is rightly called a master of the dark tale, and Dark Tales does exactly what its title suggests, in showcasing her superb literary talent. Recommended.

(NOTE TO NETGALLEY - this version of the ebook was particularly poorly formatted. I had read quite a distance into the book and was not enjoying it at all, thinking it jumbled and disjointed. It was only when I reloaded by paid-for version of Dark Tales (purchased from Amazon) that I realised that several of the stories' text had all be squashed together in an uninterrupted block of text, so it read as if it was all one story, not several independent story. Had I not owned the book anyway I could have easily rated the book lower, thinking it rambling and not cohesive. Just thought I'd feed that back.)

There was an issue with the Netgalley file in that the various stories ran into each other, sometimes in the middle of a line. This shouldn't cause a problem however as you read it you are never able to relax, waiting for a twist ending at every turn. It also meant that I lost the story titles. I liked that there's a mix between the mundane and the supernatural here, and I like how mean Shirley Jackson is about her protagonists. The bullying old woman is a frequent theme, and seems topical at the time of reading with so much discussion of "Karen" privilege! She plays well with class, inherited wealth is frequently mocked, contributing to this collection feeling very modern despite being decades old. Overall this was fun, spooky and highly enjoyable.

I'm a bit Shirley Jackson'd out. I get promised horror but it's only ever tepid and stale. Perhaps I'm asking or expecting too much. I think I'll just pass on any more of her stories.

This was a deliciously wicked selection of tales from the mistress of suburban horror and I can honestly say that I loved every one of them! Writing in her usual wry tone, Jackson crafted some wonderfully macabre stories in this collection, some of which are out and out spooky and others of which have a distinctly cosmic horror vibe to them a la Lovecraft. It is hard to pick a favourite in a collection like this, but I found 'What a Thought', 'Family Treasures', and 'The Possibility of Evil' especially magnificent, for the way in which they expose the ugliness lurking behind white picket fences, beautiful village greens and happy marriages. All in all, this was an amazing collection and I highly recommend it to anyone who loves horror or indeed, anyone who appreciates the beauty of a deftly constructed sentence - both are present here in abundance.
I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.

This was my second Shirley Jackson read this year and I really enjoyed it. The plot twists were really fascinating. Some of them were quite predictable but they're still wonderfully done. There’s no denying that Jackson was a very gifted author. Truly one of a kind. It’s impressive how she turns simple stories into unusual, dark and suspenseful ones. Highly recommended! There are 17 short stories in this collection and my personal favorites are The Possibility of Evil, Jack the Ripper, All She Said Was Yes, What A Thought, Home, and The Summer People. I recently got a copy of We Have Always Lived in the Castle and I can’t wait to read it.
My Actual Rating : 4.5 out of 5

A great selection of short stories from one of my favourite authors. Dark and creeping the stories can both unsettle and enthrall. Great introduction to the works of Shirley Jackson.

I’m really conflicted on how to rate this book. It is a collection of short stories and I did enjoy many of them. However, there were also quiet a few confusing ones and ones I didn’t care about at all. I’m not that well versed when it comes to reviewing short story collections, or reading them for that matter, so we shall see how this review will go.

This collection consists of 17 short stories. And each of them is beautifully written. I haven’t read anything by Shirley Jackson before now, but after reading these stories I definitely plan on reading more of her works. Her writing style is simply beautiful and captivating, like nothing I have encountered before. It reminds me of Gothic novels and if you know me you know I love that way of writing.

The horror in these stories is very subtile. It isn’t always apparent, but rather as you continue reading a story you notice how unnatural it is. How some things the characters say don’t make any sense, how the thoughts of the character whose perspective we read from start getting more and more unrecognisable. Sometimes you notice the weird, creepy, dark things only at the end of the story. But all of them have definitely managed to spook me and unnerve me in some way. I wouldn’t call them horror stories, but instead I would refer to the title and call them dark stories. The title Dark Tales perfectly explains the atmosphere and tone in all the stories within this collection.

My favourite stories, from the first half of the collection:

The Honeymoon of Mrs Smith:

She just got married to Mr Smith a week or so ago and currently they are living in an apartment, where they are having their honeymoon. She comes from a rather rich family and she didn’t know Mr Smith much before their marriage. A neighbour comes to talk to her while Mr Smith is at work and confesses to her the fear that Mr Smith might be a killer, that was recently mentioned in the paper, and that he is going to kill Mrs Smith.

Jack the Ripper:

One day, while going home, a man comes across a girl that is asleep in an alley. She appears to have passed out due to the alcohol she consumed. Worried about her, but not knowing who she is he walks into the nearby bar to see if someone there knows who she is and what he should do. He manages to find out some information about her, but all in all the people in the bar weren’t helpful. He decides to take her home himself.

What a Thought:

A woman is sitting in her living room with her husband. Each of them is reading a book and relaxing after diner. The woman has had an uneasy feeling all day and she didn’t know what was making her restless. Suddenly it occurs to her that she could take the ashtray and hit her husband over the head with it and kill him. She proceeds to think of many different ways she could kill her husband, while thinking that she would never actually do it.

OVERALL:

I rather enjoyed the stories in this collection. Most of the stories were very interesting, but quiet a few disappointed me as well. I think that’s the way collections are, you just can’t love every single story. It was a very fascinating collection and one I would definitely recommend to everyone who enjoys creepy and unnerving stories. It’s also not very scary, so it might be a good starting point for people who want to get into horror but aren’t sure if they will enjoy it, or rather don’t know if they can handle the scary things in horror books.

A nice selection of unsettling stories that are often quite dark but not so much so as to give you nightmares.

Shirley Jackson's writing never fails to immerse me, and utterly creep me out!

I have read most of her work, and each one is mesmerising, haunting and compelling. There is something nightmarish, yet subtle and super sinister. These stories are that to the letter. I highly recommend anything by Shirley Jackson to everyone - I definitely agree that she is the queen of American Gothic!

Shirley Jackson is my new favourite writer. This year I devoured We Have Always Lived at the Castle aand have since bought it for three people who I felt just HAD to read it. These stories are just as dark and unsettling and really leave you rattled after reading them - in a good way! The way she brings a sinister and nightmarish touch to smalltown normality is absolutely addictive and I think that she was way ahead of her time in this juxtaposition of the cosy sand the chilling. I'd absolutely love to see these made into a series andI think that anyone who likes their domestic noir more noir than domestic will find much to love here. Shirley Jackson deserves to be much more famous than she actually is and hopefully this collection will go a long way towards putting her there

A classic collection filled to the brim with enthralling stories. A must have for fans of speculative fiction.

This is a collection of seventeen short stories by Shirley Jackson and, my word, they are head and shoulders above almost everything else written in the form. No one does suspense like Shirley Jackson and while that might not be the most original thing to say about her writing, you can't doubt that its true. A seemingly harmless tale of suburban life will suddenly take a shocking left turn in a quick sentence (usually this is the last sentence of the story, it seems like Shirley Jackson liked to leave her readers on a knife edge!) the stories are compact but so skilfully written that at times I got goosebumps from the ending. Its no small skill to create the atmosphere of eeriness that exists in so many of the stories and as you read on, that feeling on intensifies as you realise that any one of the characters is capable of anything. I was familiar with a few of the stories and if you own a collection of her writing it might be worth cross referencing the story titles but it was nice to revisit a few old friends, even if they are the kind of friends who will leave you in a cold sweat. If you've never read any Shirley Jackson before then this is a good place to start and to get a feel for her writing and I envy anyone who has it all yet to come!

I received a free ARC from Netgalley in enhange for a fair review.

Jackson Shorts – twisted everyday psychology and supernatural horror

This is collection of seventeen short stories, most of which have been published in earlier collections and also appeared in various magazines, for example, The New Yorker. Here, they are gathered together in a new Penguin Collection

I received this as a digital ARC, for review purposes, and I assume that it is only intended to release these as a wood book, since it must be said the digital version was unusually poorly formatted – basically, there was no obvious end or beginning to each story, it ran continuously as a single tale, so the reader needed to keep their attention sharp for when a new sentence made no sense, connected to the one before

The tales fell into two types. The bulk of them were stories of every day small town people, possessed of a kind of psychological warp of some kind of nastiness. These reminded me forcefully of some of the short stories by a slightly later writer – Patricia Highsmith, though Jackson is funnier. In this vein, is The Possibility of Evil, a story about an elderly spinster, a model of rectitude, neat, devoted to growing roses, but whose nature at root is quite different, inventively spiteful.

The small town world is often deconstructed and shown to be cracked and wanting by Jackson, and the not so hidden cruelty in human nature is laid bare by her. Families, sibling rivalries, the cracks in relationships are given savage and often blackly funny treatments. Some of the stories, such as The Summer People are quite poignant and frightening in the potential realism which underlies them – a couple of still hale retirees who go year on year to a backwoods summer cottage, decide to stay on for longer. The local residents, warm and welcoming to tourists in the summer, close ranks once the season is over, and the couple are left with the creeping intimation of their mortality approaching, suddenly frail and frightened.

I particularly liked the small number of stories on the edge of supernatural – a strange and haunted picture, seen in the moonlight, in an old house, a picture of that house itself, which seems to have some kind of malevolent power….

As is often the case with collections of short stories, not all are of equal brilliance, and I do prefer the fuller flowering of Jackson’s novels, but this is still a pleasurable, shiverable read of Jackson shorts. As long as you stick to wood book format!

Had it not been Jackson, I might have abandoned this digital arc right at the point where the first story ended and the second began, with no spatial indication or demarcation point between them.

A series of Gothic short stories which are really clever and sometimes downright unsettling. Jackson sees the "worm in the bud" in American society and allows her perfectly ordinary characters to act and react in ways that are unexpected, to say the least.

This is a really generous collection of short stories. There are 17 in this book in total, with the longest being only 24 pages (which feels like loads after reading 10 page stories practically all the way through)! I have reviewed each story that made up part of this book, giving each of them a star rating.

The Possibility of Evil - 3 stars
I wasn’t all that interested in this short until right at the very end. The last line was fantastically horrible.

Louisa, Please Come Home - 3 stars
Hm. This one was good but not great. It was sad, more than anything.

Paranoia - 5 stars
This story was great! It gripped me right from the start and had my heart pounding as Mr Beresford was rushing to get home and away from “light hat”. Fantastically creepy ending too.

The Honeymoon of Mrs Smith - 2 stars
I liked the prose and everything but I didn’t get it? Probably me just being stupid but… yeah.

The Story We Used to Tell - 3 stars
There was certainly an eeriness about this story but I didn’t like how it took on a sort of paranormal turn, when the rest of the stories have been based on human nature.

The Sorcerer's Apprentice - 2 stars
This one was just really dull in comparison to the other ones.

Jack the Ripper - 4 stars
I liked this one because it was creepy and kind of left you to your own imagination. I love any kind of story that focuses on the Ripper because everyone makes him their own.

The Beautiful Stranger - 3 stars
If you can’t already tell from my previous mini reviews, I prefer the creepy stories, and this wasn’t that, but it was still an interesting story, just not my favourite.

All She Said Was Yes - 4 stars
I liked this story because it was a little bit different and the ending has you going “No! No! Don’t do it!”. I like it when a book conjures up that emotion from you.

What a Thought - 4 stars
Hasn’t just about everyone had a murderous thoughts before? This was a good story because I could relate to some of it. (That all sounds so bad, don’t worry, I’m not planning on ever killing anyone).

The Bus - 4 stars
I really liked this one! It got super creepy when she arrived at the old house and I loved the twist ending!

Family Treasures - 3 stars
I enjoyed this one all the way up to then end. Girls are so terribly bitchy, Jackson got the atmosphere in the house perfectly right!

A Visit - 3 stars
I liked how the mystery built in this story but I didn’t particularly like how to story ended. I also felt that the timings were a little all over the place, which confused me at some parts.

The Good Wife - 3 stars
I didn’t mind this story but it was very predictable. I was hoping the end wouldn’t be what I was expecting it to be, but alas.

The Man in the Woods - 4 stars
This story had a bit of a fairy tale feel to it, which made it a lot more enjoyable for me.

Home - 4 stars
OK, so I know I said earlier in this review that I didn’t like one of the stories taking on a paranormal element, but I liked it in this one! I kind of reminded me of Beetlejuice because of the bridge lol.

The Summer People - 4 stars
Eep, this one was creepy! I liked the whole creepy local community vibe it had to it and how the Allison’s were no longer welcome… Very good end to this collection of shorts.

DNF'd at 41%

This is one of the few books I have ever failed to finish but, dear God, this was so dull! I have heard that this is probably prolific horror writer, Shirley Jackson's, least popular work and I can see why.

The stories focused on mundane suburbia, which heightened the sinister vibes that haunted each tale. Unfortunately, for me, these stories felt dull and bland. The twists that occurred were interesting and unprecedented, in a handful of them, but never enough to redeem the entire story. I would rather read one of Jackson's better received anthologies rather than struggle through this one and end up writing-off this author completely.

I managed to read half of the stories in the collection and only one was of any interest to me. A breakdown of my thoughts on the few I read are listed below:

The Possibility of Evil - 2/5 stars
The first few pages of this read quite drily but the sly twist regarding the main character made this a deceptively wicked little tale! It dealt with such trivial matters but that is where the absurdity of this shone. The ending, however, made the whole piece seem pointless and not properly concluded.

Louisa, Please Come Home - 1/5 stars
This focuses on the narrative of a runaway and should have been poignant but, instead, was rather boring. Like the first tale, this had an interesting twist but the lack of an ending just made this seem incomplete. The protagonist was petulant and unlikeable and, without proper reasoning given for her disappearance, it was hard to feel any empathy towards her. This read less like a cohesive story and more like an in-depth character study.

Paranoia - 4/5 stars
The character’s growing sense of unease is mirrored by the reader as the story wears on. Despite the lack of anything sinister actually occurring, this had a permeating eerie feel to it. The cliffhanger ending, that left the preceding stories feeling incomplete, added to the tension of this piece.

The Honeymoon of Mrs Smith - 3/5 stars
This is an intriguing story, where the reader is kept in the dark about the protagonist’s secrets. The suspense grows and it feels almost illicit to learn the truth. I wouldn’t have gathered that this was a Bluebeard retelling just from reading it, but now I know that fact it makes the piece make much more sense. I still found this a boring read, but it gets a bonus star as I am absolute trash for retellings.

The Story We Used to Tell - 3/5 stars
This had the haunting vibes I was longing for, from this collection, and the ending redoubled the spooky aura. This wasn’t exactly an original story, but was an enjoyable, if forgettable, one.

The Sorcerer's Apprentice - 1/5 stars
I’m starting to think I am missing something about Jackson’s writing as this was another dull and pointless story. The story was just started to get interesting but seemed to stop half way through the telling of it. Again!

Jack the Ripper - 2/5 stars
This was the story I was most excited for, based solely on the title. The twist part-way through was unprecedented and, despite not actually scary, had a sinister vibe. Again, like every story in this collection, there was no conclusion and the story stops just as it is getting interesting.

The Beautiful Stranger - 2/5 stars
This story differed from the others, in that the story was dull but the ending interesting, rather than the other way around. One sentence wasn’t enough to redeem it, however.

I have wanted to read Shirley Jacksons work for months and I have bought 'the haunting of hill house' but I haven't read it yet however now I can't wait to. This is my second short story collection of the month and I'm starting to get into them although I personally find short story collections quite jarring but I love how quickly I can get through them and the variety of stories. I wasn't as impressed with this one as I was with Happy Ending NOT Guaranteed earlier in the month but I'd still recommend it.

The theme of all of the stories, as the title would suggest, is dark, atmospheric and usually family, marriage or relationship orientated which I liked as I find that any horror or darker stories related to family are really creepy. Some of the stories were very short but most where long enough to really get into the story and get to know the characters and the settings. I would say that 60% of the stories were darkly entertaining and interesting but for me about 40% of the stories were a little boring. I love Shirley Jackson's writing style and I definitely want to read more from her but this wasn't quite for me, probably because my expectations were so high going into it.

This book is like a box of really really good chocolates, very dark with unexpected centres. And best enjoyed one at a time! I have a feeling that they will improve with reading as well, so am very much looking forward to revisiting. Also, having had my first encounter with Jackson via audio, I think these would be excellent listened to. In a dark room...

This is a mixed bag of tales by Shirley Jackson, combining what appears to be fully thought out stories and some that appear to be brief ideas that were never fully utilised.

The majority of these tales take everday situations and skew them with a malicious delight. However some stories appear to briefly only to end without pushing things further. Stories such as 'All She Said Was Yes' and the surpring twist of 'Louisa, Please Come Home' show us the true skill of Shirley Jackson's writing however ones such as 'Jack the Ripper' feel like they could have had more to them.

I would advise people to read this only to see a true writer present some sinister tales of normality but also expect some to come appear all to briefly to warrant any sort of response from the reader.

Has a title ever been more appropriate than Shirley Jackson’s title of queen of American Gothic? Nope.

These stories are short and snappy - 17 stories in just over 200 pages! And not a single word is wasted. Jackson is a master of tension, suspense and quiet horror. There’s nothing overtly scary. No monsters, no blood, no on-page murder or death; it’s all psychological and that’s where Jackson shines.

My favourite stories in the collection are ‘The Possibility of Evi’, ‘Paranoia’, ‘What a Thought’ and ‘The Man in the Woods’. The creepiness of old houses, the unexplained actions of strangers and mysterious houses in the middle of the dark woods all deliver that same unnerving atmosphere and deep chill of evil. Deliciously dark.