William Wymark Jacobs was an English writer of short fiction and play. He is best known for his novella "The Monkey's Paw". He was born in 1863 at 5, Crombie's Row, Mile End Old Town (not Wapping, as is commonly said), London, to William Gage Jacobs, a wharf manager, and his wife Sophia. According to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, "the young Jacobs spent much time on Thames-side, growing familiar with the life of the neighbourhood" and "ran wild in Wapping" since his father managed the South Devon wharf in Lower East Smithfield, by the St Katherine Docks. William and his siblings were young when their mother died. Their father later married his housekeeper and had seven additional children. In 1879, Jacobs started working as a clerk at the Post Office Savings Bank. By 1885, he had published his first short story, but success was delayed. In 1898, Arnold Bennett was surprised to learn that Jacobs had turned down £50 for six short stories. He was financially stable enough to leave the post office in 1899.
