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"The Lottery" is a short story by Shirley Jackson, first published in the June 28, 1948 issue of The New Yorker. The only change New Yorker editors made to Jackson's original manuscript was to alter the date in the story to make it one day after the date of the magazine's publication.

The magazine and Jackson herself were surprised by the highly negative reader response. Many readers cancelled their subscriptions, and hate mail continued to arrive throughout the summer. In South Africa the story was banned. Since then, it has been accepted as a classic American short story, subject to many critical interpretations and media adaptations.