Is there an audiobook of The Haunting of Hill House?

Yes. The Haunting of Hill House has an Audible audiobook edition, narrated by Bernadette Dunne.

How long is the The Haunting of Hill House audiobook?

The The Haunting of Hill House audiobook runs 7 hr 27 min.

Is The Haunting of Hill House on Kindle Unlimited?

No. The Haunting of Hill House was not included with Kindle Unlimited when we last checked on August 10, 2026.

The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson book cover for the Book of the Day horror book review

Our score

4.2/ 5

Excellent

Listen to The Haunting of Hill House free with an Audible trial Narrator, runtime & our audio review

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EDITION PUBLISHEDSeptember 2009

Genres

Fiction Horror Gothic

Themes

Loneliness and the hunger to belongThe unreliability of one's own mindPlace as a psychological forceThe line between possession and longing

The Haunting of Hill House

Name: The Haunting of Hill House
Price: 12.99 USD
Availability: InStock
Author: Shirley Jackson

Shirley Jackson

Shirley Jackson's 1959 ghost story works less by what it shows than by what it withholds: four strangers spend a summer in a house that may or may not be alive, and the real haunting happens inside one woman's head. It is the template most modern horror is still copying.

The Review

Our take

Jackson opens with a paragraph that horror writers have been quoting at one another for sixty years, and the rest of the book earns it. Dr. Montague, an academic chasing proof of the supernatural, gathers a small party at Hill House: brittle, lonely Eleanor, who has spent eleven years nursing a dead mother and arrives starved for any kind of belonging; the glamorous, faintly cruel Theodora; and Luke, the heir whose family owns the place. What follows is not a parade of effects. It is a slow tightening, and Jackson is in complete control of the screw.

The genius of the book is that it refuses to tell you where the danger is coming from. Doors close that no one closed. Cold spots appear. Something pounds down the hallway in the dark, and writing on a wall calls Eleanor by name. But Jackson keeps the focus relentlessly on Eleanor's interior, on a mind so hungry to be wanted that the house's attention starts to feel like love. By the midpoint you genuinely cannot tell whether Hill House is reaching for her or whether she is reaching for it, and that ambiguity is the engine. The dread is psychological before it is ever supernatural, which is exactly why it lasts.

What impresses me most as a piece of construction is how little Jackson spends to get so much. The prose is precise and often funny in a dry, unsettling way; the dialogue between the four guests crackles with the forced gaiety of people who suspect they should leave and won't. She plants the unease early and then simply turns the temperature up degree by degree, never overplaying her hand, never explaining what a more anxious writer would have explained. The fear here is architectural in both senses: the house is wrong in its angles, and the story is built so that you feel the wrongness in your own footing.

It is worth knowing what this is and isn't before you go in. Readers raised on contemporary horror's pacing may find the first stretch quiet, and Jackson never delivers the tidy reveal or the rationalized monster that modern thrillers train you to wait for. The scares are suggestive rather than graphic; the body count is not the point. If you need your supernatural confirmed and your threats named, the deliberate withholding may frustrate. But that withholding is the whole achievement. The ending lands like a trap that was set on page one, and it reframes everything Eleanor told you about herself.

Why you should read

Readers who prefer dread and atmosphere over gore
Anyone curious about the foundational text behind modern haunted-house fiction
Fans of unreliable narrators and psychological ambiguity
Those who like a literary, character-driven ghost story

What to expect

A slow, deliberate build rather than escalating set pieces
Suggestive, never graphic scares centered on one fragile mind
Sharp, dry prose and tense four-hander dialogue
An ambiguous ending that withholds the tidy explanation

This is the book that taught the genre that the most frightening haunted house is one you can't be sure is haunted, and that the scariest thing in any room might be the person who most wants to stay. Read it for the craft, and brace for how cleanly it gets under the skin and stays there.

Reviewed by Quinn · How our reviews are written

Our verdict

4.2/ 5

Excellent

Listen to The Haunting of Hill House free with an Audible trial Narrator, runtime & our audio review

Buy on Amazon

As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases. Prices may vary.

Where to read or listen

Is there an audiobook of The Haunting of Hill House?: Yes. The Haunting of Hill House has an Audible audiobook edition, narrated by Bernadette Dunne.
Listen to The Haunting of Hill House free with an Audible trial
We earn from qualifying Amazon purchases.
How long is the The Haunting of Hill House audiobook?: The The Haunting of Hill House audiobook runs 7 hr 27 min.
Is The Haunting of Hill House on Kindle Unlimited?: No. The Haunting of Hill House was not included with Kindle Unlimited when we last checked on August 10, 2026.

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More by Shirley JacksonSee every Shirley Jackson book we've reviewed, with our scores.All Shirley Jackson books →

Common questions

What is The Haunting of Hill House about?: Jackson opens with a paragraph that horror writers have been quoting at one another for sixty years, and the rest of the book earns it. Dr. Montague, an academic chasing proof of the supernatural, gathers a small party at Hill House: brittle, lonely Eleanor, who has spent eleven years nursing a…
Is The Haunting of Hill House worth reading?: We scored The Haunting of Hill House 4.2 out of 5. Shirley Jackson's 1959 ghost story works less by what it shows than by what it withholds: four strangers spend a summer in a house that may or may not be alive, and the real haunting happens inside one woman's head. It is the template most modern horror is still copying.