The Bird's Nest

VERY GOOD — DUST JACKET: Wear & tear to top and bottom edges of spine, panels, folds and flaps. Chipping to top and bottom of spine and corresponding corners, w/voids to bottom. Chipping to all outside corners. Several closed tears to top and bottom edges, both panels, primarily top. Scuffs/stressing to hinges and flap folds. Minor soiling to back panel. In first 2 pics, paper insert placed inside for improved appearance. BOARDS: Very good condition. No issues. BOOK: Very good condition. No issues. Please inspect photos closely for condition details.

Here on offer is a very nice copy of Shirley Jackson's psychological thriller, The Bird's Nest, her third novel and the basis for the 1957 film, Lizzie, starring Eleanor Parker as the title character. This copy is a 1st trade edition, 1st printing of the work published by Farrar, Straus and Young in 1954. The dust jacket is protected from further wear by a Mylar sleeve.

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"The unsettling story of a young woman's descent into mental illness, from the author of The Haunting of Hill House and We Have Always Lived at the Castle.

'An amazing writer' Neil Gaiman

Elizabeth Richmond is almost too quiet to be believed, with no friends, no parents, and a job that leaves her strangely unnoticed. But soon she starts to behave in ways she can neither control nor understand, to the increasing horror of her doctor, and the humiliation of her self-centred aunt. As a tormented Elizabeth becomes two people, then three, then four, each wilder and more wicked than the last, a battle of wills threatens to destroy the girl and all who surround her. The Bird's Nest is a macabre journey into who we are, and how close we sometimes come to the brink of madness. . . .

'The world of Shirley Jackson is eerie and unforgettable ... It is a place where things are not what they seem; even on a morning that is sunny and clear there is always the threat of darkness looming, of things taking a turn for the worse' - A. M. Homes"

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Shirley Hardie Jackson (December 14, 1916 – August 8, 1965) was an American writer known primarily for her works of horror and mystery. Over the duration of her writing career, which spanned over two decades, she composed six novels, two memoirs, and more than 200 short stories.

. . . After publishing her debut novel, The Road Through the Wall (1948), a semi-autobiographical account of her childhood in California, Jackson gained significant public attention for her short story "The Lottery", which presents the sinister underside of a bucolic American village. She continued to publish numerous short stories in literary journals and magazines throughout the 1950s, some of which were assembled and reissued in her 1953 memoir Life Among the Savages. In 1959, she published The Haunting of Hill House, a supernatural horror novel widely considered to be one of the best ghost stories ever written. Jackson's final work, the 1962 novel We Have Always Lived in the Castle, is a Gothic mystery which has been described as Jackson's masterpiece.

The above text was taken from, respectively, Penguin Classics (via Google Books) and Wikipedia.