Dear friends and loyal readers may remember that a few months ago, after finishing Shirley Jackson's complex and suspenseful The Haunting of Hill House, I mentioned that Library of America would be publishing a volume of Jackson's work which I hoped would include one of Jackson's three (four if you count The Sundial, as I tend to) out-of-print novels.
After two months of checking the Library of America website twice a week for a table of contents for the upcoming volume, it has finally been posted.
I certainly understand that Library of America is a prestige publication, in fact, it is the unofficial cannon of great American authors, and therefore I also understand why it is necessary that Jackson's major work (The Lottery, The Haunting of Hill House, We Have Always Lived in the Castle) be included. However, while I appreciate that the volume will include previously uncollected stories and unpublished short stories, the omission of all of these other novels is a sore disappointment to me.
The consolation is, at least, that I can now spend largish sums of money without buyers guilt to obtain copies of them.
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Joe: You'll be happy to hear that The Library of America is planning a second volume of Shirley Jackson's writings. We haven't yet set a publication date, nor have we finalized the contents, but it will almost certainly include all four out-of-print novels. Like many other authors selected for the series, Shirley Jackson deserves more than one volume in the series.
ReplyDelete--David Cloyce Smith
David,
ReplyDeleteThat's fantastic news! I'd considered the possibility of there being a second volume in the works, but I didn't want to get my hopes up unwarranted.
I'm really glad to hear that. Her work deserves it. Thank you so much for letting me know, and all the great work LOA does.