W. W. Jacobs

Probably the best thing about the Kindle is the ability to read easily public domain books for free.  This means you can more easily chase down obscure authors who are not well known today.  One such author is W. W. Jacobs.

I got to wondering last fall about who wrote the classic story "The Monkey's Paw".  Turned out to be W. W. Jacobs.  Between Amazon, Gutenberg, and ManyBooks, I tracked down all of Jacobs works for free.  In the process, I forgot which book contained "The Monkey's Paw" so I in the process of getting to that, I read five short story collections and two novels.  Here's the funny thing, while best remembered for a tale of suspense and terror, Jacobs strength is as a humorist.  Most of his stories center on sailors and wharves set in the early 20th century.  Characters and places run through his works.  The best character is the night watchman at Wapping, London.  There's also a trio of sailors who get into all sorts of scrapes when they come home and have money to burn after being paid for a voyage.  It's a lot of good funny stuff which I highly recommend.

Back to "The Monkey's Paw" from The Lady of the Barge.  It is a great little story well deserving of all the tributes it has gotten over the years.  The problem is by the time I got to it, I was enjoying Jacobs too much as a humorist to love him as a serious writer.  This is actually my least favorite of his books that I've read thus far due to its serious tinge.  I'd suggest starting with this book and then moving on to his other stuff.