Before I read "The Lottery" I read The Haunting of Hill House, still terrifying.
Oh, same here. My introduction to that was my mother's Reader's Digest Condensed Books, and I'd read it a couple of times even before the 1963 film was released. I then bought the movie tie-in paperback, my copy of which is still nicely intact.
I was originally quite taken with the illustrations in the Reader's Digest version. Of course they are nothing like Robert Wise's vision, and I later appreciated them for that difference. Years later I mentioned this to friends who just happened to be dumping their collection of the Condensed Books. She pulled that volume and gave it to me so I'd be able to see those illustrations again. They're Canadian, and the RDs printed there had slipcovers, so I have a lovely memento of that moment in history. That's the volume that includes
Mrs. 'Arris Goes to Paris, which I also read a couple of times back in the day.