William Wymark Jacobs (8 September 1863 – 1 September 1943) was an English author of short fiction and drama. He is best known for his story "The Monkey's Paw".
Early life
He was born in 1863 at 5, Crombie's Row, Mile End Old Town (not Wapping, as is often stated), London, to William Gage Jacobs, wharf manager, and his wife Sophia. His father managed the South Devon wharf in Lower East Smithfield, by the St Katherine Docks and, according to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, "the young Jacobs spent much time on Thames-side, growing familiar with the life of the neighbourhood" and "ran wild in Wapping". Jacobs and his siblings were still young when their mother died. Their father then married his housekeeper and had seven more children, including illustrator Helen Jacobs. Jacobs attended a private London school before Birkbeck College (Birkbeck Literary and Scientific Institution, now part of the University of London), where he befriended William Pett Ridgcap.
Early work
In 1879, Jacobs began work as a clerk in the Post Office Savings Bank. By 1885 he had his first short story published, but success came slowly. Yet Arnold Bennett in 1898 was astonished to hear that Jacobs had turned down £50 for six short stories. He was financially secure enough to be able to leave the Post Office in 1899.
Dramatic work
Jacobs's short-story output declined somewhat around the time of the First World War. His literary efforts thereafter were mainly adaptations of his own short stories for the stage. His first stage work, The Ghost of Jerry Bundler, opened in London in 1899, was revived in 1902, and was eventually published in 1908. He wrote 18 plays altogether, some in collaboration with other writers.
