W. W. (William Wymark) Jacobs

William Wymark Jacobs (1863–1943) was an English author of short fiction, novels, and drama. Born in London, he grew up close to the Thames docks, where his father worked as a wharf manager; that setting later shaped many of his humorous sailor stories and characters.

Jacobs began publishing short stories in the 1880s and left his Post Office job in 1899 to write full time. Although much of his work was comic, he is remembered especially for the supernatural tale “The Monkey’s Paw,” first published in the 1902 collection The Lady of the Barge, along with other ghost stories such as “The Toll House.”