William Wymark Jacobs was born in London in 1863. A journalist, playwright, humorist, and writer. He was popular among British readers for a series of novellas dealing with the lives of seamen, but he is most famous for his macabre short story, “The Monkey’s Paw,” which was included in the 1902 collection The Lady of the Barge. “The Monkey’s Paw” was adapted into dozens of films, radio plays, and television shows. It is included in dozens of anthologies of British literature and of classic literature in Europe and in the United States. Alfred Hitchcock adapted the story into his popular television show in the 1960s, and Stephen King based his own horror novel, Pet Sematery, on this already-classic tale. Jacobs died in his London home on one autumn night in 1943. The circumstances of his death were never mentioned.
