The greatest haunted house story ever written, the inspiration for a 10-part Netflix series directed by Mike Flanagan and starring Michiel Huisman, Carla Gugino, and Timothy Hutton First published in 1959, Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House has been hailed as a perfect work of unnerving terror. It is the story of four seekers who arrive at a notoriously unfriendly pile called Hill … unfriendly pile called Hill House: Dr. Montague, an occult scholar looking for solid evidence of a “haunting”; Theodora, his lighthearted assistant; Eleanor, a friendless, fragile young woman well acquainted with poltergeists; and Luke, the future heir of Hill House. At first, their stay seems destined to be merely a spooky encounter with inexplicable phenomena. But Hill House is gathering its powers—and soon it will choose one of them to make its own.
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One of my favorite books!
Classic horror story where not all of the danger comes from the haunted house. The Netflix series doesn’t tell the story of the book, but the connections between the two works are clever, entertaining, and disturbing.
Gothic horror might be one of the most underrated horror genres, and this book might be the most underrated classic in the genre. Probably it is because the two times it was adapted for the big screen: the 1963 version which is not that well known and the awful 1999 remake that is unwatchable.
The novel tells the story of a researcher who rents a well known “haunted” house set on gathering enough evidence to write a book about the subject. For such task, he recruits two women and one of the descendants of the house’s owner. The story works brilliantly through a magnificent setting, a group of well-defined characters and a slow burning narrative that is full of different layers of reality and will leave you questioning what really happened.
Definitely a book that belongs in every list of horror book aficionados.
For a short book it took way too long to read it
Very disappointed, not what I expected
This was a fun, fast read.
An incredible story. It stays with you, and haunts you at odd moments. I wonder who was holding her hand?
The original haunted house book in my opinion.
Well written book that is somewhat scary, but not to the point you cannot turn out the lights. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
The writing is good, the characters are engaging but I did not find the overall story to be great. I read the book because it was a forerunner and model to several of today’s writers and a movie was made from the storyline (albeit way off from the book). I was dissappointed. It kept me engaged but certainly not at scary.
This is one of my all-time favorite books. It is difficult to adequately describe why. It is terrifying, but unsensational. Stephen King described the author perfectly when he said
“Shirley never shouted. She didn’t need to.”
There was ample opportunity for Ms. Jackson to venture off into speculation or sub-plots, but she didn’t. She described the characters very precisely, and stayed true to who they were. The house was the main character, and she drew a perfect picture of it in my mind.
I guess “scary” is different for every person. This was the best kind of
scary : no gore, no magic, no characters I had seen in other books, and it was still terrifying. How frightening can a haunted house be? Read this and you will find out.
(BTW, the old black and white movie of this book is creepy creepy creepy, and definitely worth seeing. The newer one is presented in a farcical way, and just lost something because of that.)
One of the BEST haunted house/ghost stories ever written. Terrifying to the core and without gore or anything gratuitous that distracts from the true literary content and capacity the author needs to deliver to the reader. Classic!
Best horror novel ever written.
A haunted house and a strange cast of characters. Eleanor, Theodora, Luke, and Dr. Montague insert themselves in to Hill House to study the haunted phenomena that lurk there. Who will stay and who will go? A perfect, classic read for the Halloween season.
This was one that I picked up, put down repeatedly, while reading and ultimately finished. I don’t see what the big deal is with this ‘The Haunting of Hill House’, the ending’ seems abrupt, rushed, didn’t find this to terror filling, perhaps in 1959 it would be more haunting, also authors where limited with how graphic they could write, did like Shirley Jackson’s writing and feel like this one would have benefited being longer page count wise.
One of my very favorite books, I’ve re-read it several times. Shirley Jackson was a master. One of THE BEST haunted house books ever.
I’ve enjoyed the movie for years and had to read the book. As always, it was even better than its cinematic cousin.
There’s a reason this book is a classic. Silent storm of a slow burn. You really end up taking the journey with the character.
A classic horror story. Read it several years ago and recently reread it. Still had the power to terrify!
Although this is an older book, and I was worried about the writing, I was pleasantly surprised. It was well written, and held my interest. Descriptions were perfect. I like seeing the world as the MC sees it and I was not disappointed. Having watched the original movie and the re-make, I can see where both movies blended the story. I plan on reading more of this author.