.com Review Many people have encountered the story "The Monkey's Paw," anthologized nearly 70 times in horror collections alone. Most do not know, however, that its author, W.W. Jacobs, was an immensely popular writer from the 1890s through the Second World War, selling many tens of thousands of copies of his 13 short story collections. His craftsmanship was admired by such authors as G.K. Chesterton and Evelyn Waugh. Jacobs mostly wrote humorous short stories about humble seafaring folk, but "The Monkey's Paw" is by no means his only tale of the macabre. This collection contains 18 stories with subjects including haunted houses, vengeful ghosts, guilty murderers and people faking supernatural phenomena. "The Monkey's Paw" is, of course, a moral tale about how there's always a price to pay if you interfere with what's natural. It's not a mere object lesson, though: the powerful mood of mourning and despair is what makes it so memorable. Jacobs also emphasizes the dangers of mocking the supernatural. In the superb tale "The Toll House," for example, four men pull the familiar stunt of staying in a supposedly haunted house overnight. They tease each other while drinking whiskey and playing cards to while away the time, and one of them tugs on the servants' bell as a joke. Later on the man who pulled the bell is all alone in the dark, pursued by ominous footsteps, rushing about in a panicky search for the stairs. And in "Jerry Bundler," an actor tries to pull a prank on a man who is fearful of ghosts by dressing up as a renowned local spirit. He pays for his impudence in a way that is not supernatural, but the reader's left wondering what forces contrived the tragic chain of events. It's a delightful collection of stories, distinguished by Jacobs's ability to infuse horror into the simplest, most prosaic of situations, his excellent sense of pacing in the short story form, and his sardonic sense of humor. --Fiona Webster Read more From Booklist W. W. Jacobs (1863^-1943) was a very entertaining and certainly prolific British writer of short stories. Eighteen of his admirably rich stories are gathered in this collection, which shows off to advantage his absolute mastery of the form. Obvious in his stories is a vein of humor, regardless of whether they are conventional mysteries or tales of the macabre or the supernatural. Jacobs' traditional setting is the Thames River, his traditional characters the people who earned their living at riverside or at sea. (His father was a wharf manager.) Economical in presentation and thus in effect, these stories will be at home in the hands of any admirer of the form, and any public library with active story collections should seriously consider its purchase. Brad Hooper Read more Review "...absolute mastery..." — Booklist Read more Book Description Considered one of the foremost humorists in England at the turn of the century, W.W. Jacobs (1863-1943) is best-known for his materpiece of horror, "The Monkey's Paw." He was the author of thriteen volumes of short stories - all of which were commercially successful - and eighteen of these are included together for the first time in this gripping collection of horror fiction.This book features Gothic narratives, stories of the macabre, and supernatural tales. But they are infused with shrewd and sardonic humor, for which Jacobs was justifiably famous. They demonstrate vividly his masterful instinct for weaving terror and suspense into scenes of ordinary everyday life. His boyhood memories of the South Devon Wharf lend authenticity to the many stories with nautical backgrounds, or that feature seamen as protagonists.Because of its immense popularity, "The Monkey's Paw" has tended to overshadow a good deal of Jacob's other work, and it is undoubtedly the most readily recognized and by far the most anthologized story in the collection. But readers will be delighted to know that Jacob's craftmanship is abundantly apparent in his many other tales, as they will discover in this new volume. Horror and mystery aficionados will be intrigued and gratified by his range of skillful and witty prose; and they will at last come to appreciate a writer whose other work has been for so long "lost" to the general public. Read more About the Author W.W. Jacobs is considered a master of the macabre tale, and especially The Monkey's Paw, the lead story in this collection, is a classic horror tale. Collected here are 18 of his stories, and will introduce North American mystery and horror aficionados to one of the great lost artists of the genre. Readers will be delighted by his range of witty and skillful prose, and will see how they are infused with shrewd and sardonic humor. Jacobs was a master at weaving terror and suspense into scenes of everyday life. Readers new to Jacobs are in for a rare treat. Gary Hoppenstand is a professor of American thought and language at Michigan State University. He is the author of Clive Barker's Short Stories: Imagination as Metaphor in the Books of Blood and Other Works and the editor of "Popular Fiction: An Anthology, which won the Popular Culture Association's National Book Award. Read more
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