Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
Jacobs is now remembered for his macabre tale "The Monkey's Paw" (published 1902 in the collection of short stories The Lady of the Barge) and several other ghost stories, including "The Toll House" (published 1909 in the collection of short stories Sailors' Knots). "Sailormen ain't wot you might call dandyfied as a rule," said the night-watchman, who had just had a passage of arms with a lighterman and been advised to let somebody else wash him and make a good job of it; "they've got too much sense. They leave dressing up and making eyesores of theirselves to men wot 'ave never smelt salt water; men wot drift up and down the river in lighters and get in everybody's way." He glanced fiercely at the retreating figure of the lighterman, and, turning a deaf ear to a request for a lock of his hair to patch a favorite doormat with, resumed with much vigor his task of sweeping up the litter. * Included in this volume are Jacobs's classic sea stories "Deserted," "Homeward Bound," "Self-Help," "Sentence Deferred," "'Matrimonial Openings, '" "Odd Man Out," "'The Toll-House, '" "Peter's Pence," "The Head of the Family," "Prize Money" "Double Dealing," and "Keeping Up Appearances."