W. W. Jacobs (William Wymark Jacobs) Biography

British writer, born in the docklands of Wapping in East London, the son of a wharf manager. While still employed in the Civil Service, his work appeared in Jerome K. Jerome's The Idler; in 1895 he joined Strand Magazine where he began producing the comic tales of sailors, bargees, dockers, and other shore-workers, for which he became renowned. Many Cargoes (1896), his first collection of stories, was followed by many others including the ‘Claybury’ stories featuring the bucolic ne'er-do-wells of village life inspired by East Anglia. He also wrote tales of the macabre and the supernatural, notably ‘The Monkey's Paw’, which appeared in The Lady of the Barge (1902) and was dramatized. Other collections include Sea Urchins (1898), Light Freights (1901), and Sea Whispers (1926), in which maritime themes develop a deeper nostalgia. His novels include A Master of Craft (1900), At Sunwich Port (1902), Dialstone Lane (1904), and Salthaven (1908).