The Lottery

This article is about the short story. For other uses, see Lottery (disambiguation).

"The Lottery"
Short story by Shirley Jackson
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Genre(s)Short story
Dystopian
Publication
PublisherThe New Yorker
Publication dateJune 26, 1948

"The Lottery" is a short story by Shirley Jackson that was first published in The New Yorker on June 26, 1948.[a] The story describes a fictional small American community that observes an annual tradition known as "the lottery", which is intended to ensure a good harvest and purge the town of bad omens. The lottery, its preparations, and its execution are all described in detail, though it is not revealed until the end what actually happens to the person selected by the random lottery: the selected member of the community is stoned to death by the other townspeople.[1]

Jackson and The New Yorker were both surprised by the initial negative response from readers; subscriptions were canceled and large amounts of hate mail were sent throughout the summer of its first publication, with Jackson receiving at least 10 letters per day.[2] The Union of South Africa banned the story because some parts of Africa still used stoning as a punishment.[3]

The story has been dramatized several times, including as a radio drama, film, and graphic novel. It has been subjected to considerable sociological and literary analysis and has been described as one of the most famous short stories in the history of American literature.[4]


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  1. ^ "The New Yorker Digital Edition : Jun 26, 1948". archives.newyorker.com. Archived from the original on March 14, 2018. Retrieved March 14, 2018.
  2. ^ Jackson, Shirley; Hyman, Stanley Edgar (1968). Come Along with Me; Part of a Novel, Sixteen Stories, and Three Lectures (2nd ed.). New York: Viking Press. ISBN 9780670231584.
  3. ^ Brown, Bill; Yost, Peter; Press, Eyal; Sacheli, Liz; Park, Edward (February 1986). "The Censoring of 'The Lottery'". The English Journal. 75 (2): 64. doi:10.2307/817892. JSTOR 817892.
  4. ^ Harris, Laurie Lanzen; Abbey, Cherie D. (2000). Biography Today: Profiles of People of Interest to Young Readers. Detroit, Michigan: Omnigraphics. p. 71. ISBN 9780780804029. Retrieved June 26, 2012.