The Monkey's Paw

Pages: 14

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The Monkey’s Paw
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The Monkey's Paw (1902) is a public domain work.

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About this book

A wet night, a chess game and a visitor from abroad bring an unsettling object into the White family's comfortable parlour. Sergeant-Major Morris carries a small monkey's paw that, he says, can grant wishes. His warnings disturb the family's joking curiosity, but Mr. White rescues the object when Morris tries to burn it. A wish for two hundred pounds turns an ordinary household concern into the starting point of this short supernatural tale.

W. W. Jacobs builds tension through familiar details: supper, the piano, a bill arriving by post and an awkward caller at the gate. The contrast between these everyday routines and the promised magic makes the uncertainty feel close to home. Published in 1902, the story gives readers a compact study of desire, chance and the temptation to interfere with fate. Its uneasy pauses and changes of tone matter as much as the strange object itself.

About the author

W. W. Jacobs

W. W. Jacobs (William Wymark Jacobs, 1863 to 1943) was an English writer born in London, the son of a wharf manager. He drew on that dockside world for comic stories of sailors and night watchmen, though he is best remembered for the chilling tale "The Monkey's Paw."