JACOBS, W(ILLIAM) W(YMARK)

born Sept. 8, 1863, London died Sept. 1, 1943, London English short-story writer best known for his classic horror story The Monkey's Paw. His early home was a house on a Thames River wharf, where his father was manager. A landsman himself, Jacobs drew on his boyhood memories of seafaring men and dockworkers to create the stories that were to establish him as a writer. His first volume, Many Cargoes (1896), had an immediate success and was followed by two others, The Skipper's Wooing (1897) and Sea Urchins (1898). Though his seamen are rarely at sea, their adventures or misadventures ashore provide many thrilling moments. The Monkey's Paw (1902), a tale of superstition and terror unfolding within a realistic, Dickensian setting of domestic warmth and coziness, is a felicitous example of Jacobs' ability to combine everyday life and gentle humour with exotic adventure and dread. Dramatized as a one-act play by Louis Napoleon Parker, it was first produced at the London Haymarket in 1903. An omnibus, Snug Harbour, containing some 17 volumes of Jacobs' work, was published in 1931.