The Lottery - or, The Adventures of James Harris

This 1949 collection marks the first book appearance of "The Lottery," one of the most widely read and debated American short stories of the twentieth century. First published in The New Yorker in June 1948, it generated one of the largest volumes of reader mail the magazine had ever received, much of it outraged. Set in an ordinary American small town on a sunny summer morning, the story centers on an annual civic ritual known simply as the lottery, whose true purpose is revealed only at the end. Jackson never explains the lottery, never editorializes, and never softens what happens. The collection contains twenty-five stories in all, many sharing Jackson's preoccupation with social pressure, conformity, and the latent cruelty beneath everyday life.

Hardcover. First Edition, First Printing. Octavo, cloth binding. First issue, with stylized "ff" logo on copyright page. Dust jacket also first issue, with $2.75 price and "Farrar, Straus and Company/ 53 East 34th Street, New York 16, N. Y" on rear flap. New York: Farrar, Straus & Company, 1949. #11347.
Near fine in very good dust jacket with light soiling and nicks along the edges with some slight loss, mostly af folds.