Shirley Jackson (1916–1965) received wide critical acclaim for her short story “The Lottery,” which was first published in the New Yorker in 1948. Her works available from Penguin Classics include We Have Always Lived in the Castle, The Haunting of Hill House, and Come Along with Me and Life Among the Savages available from Penguin.

Francine Prose is the bestselling author of more than twenty books and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She lives in New York.