The Lady of the Barge and Others, Entire Collection

William Wymark JacobsProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 4.5

Word count: 255K words
Chapters: 26

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.The Lady of the Barge and Others, Entire Collection by W. W. JacobsAuthor: Jacobs, W. W. (William Wymark), 1863-1943,Language: English, Class: PR: Language and Literatures: English literature, Release Date: Apr 1, 2004

Editor's review

This collection is one of the representative works of the English writer Jacobs, set against the backdrop of sailors and dock life, and includes several stories, among them the famous "The Monkey's Paw." Jacobs excels at telling ordinary people's small schemes and small mishaps in a brisk, everyday voice, and his humor often carries a chill; "The Monkey's Paw" in particular creates unforgettable suspense and unease in extremely few pages and is a classic example of the English short story. This Project Gutenberg edition is a public-domain English original, suitable as English reading material or an introductory text for studying the short story. Read it in fragmented time—on the commute or before bed—one story at a time, and you can both savor the tone and humor of late Victorian lower-class English life and observe how the author advances plot through dialogue and creates fear through what is left unsaid. For readers who want to understand the English short-story tradition or experience "The Monkey's Paw" in the original, this is a light but rewarding selection.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Learners who want to read classic English short stories in the original and build language sense
Readers interested in "The Monkey's Paw" and the English and American tradition of horror and weird short fiction
Casual readers who enjoy small-town humor and light satire
Literature enthusiasts studying the social context of late Victorian England

Not a good fit for

Readers who want a Chinese translation and are not comfortable with English originals
Readers who prefer long continuous narratives and are unsuited to the collection format
Readers expecting strong horror or a modern thriller pace

Reading tips

Read "The Monkey's Paw" first to get a sense of the author's style, then go back through the rest of the collection
Pause after each story and notice how dialogue establishes characters' identities and relationships
Keep a vocabulary notebook for colloquial dock and nautical expressions
Read "The Monkey's Paw" alongside a Chinese translation and compare how omission and suspense are handled

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Is this book in English or Chinese translation?

This is the English original e-book released by Project Gutenberg, in English, containing Jacobs's complete short stories with no Chinese translation. Readers need some English reading ability or should use a dictionary or a Chinese translation alongside.

Is "The Monkey's Paw" a horror story?

"The Monkey's Paw" is often placed in the weird and horror short-story tradition, but it does not rely on gore; it creates unease through everyday tone, coincidence, and omission. Its horror is closer to psychological suggestion, and its brevity makes it a good introduction to early English horror short fiction.

Can I understand it without notes?

The stories are mostly dialogue and everyday scenes, and the language is not especially difficult overall, but expressions involving docks, sailing, and period English colloquial speech may require looking up. Keep a dictionary handy, read first for plot, then return to language details rather than grinding through word by word.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

William Wymark Jacobs Author · British · 1863–1943

William Wymark Jacobs (1863–1943) was a British short-story writer, born in London in 1863 and died there in 1943. In his early years he lived around the Thames docks and was familiar with the lives of sailors and dockworkers, which led him to write a great many humorous sea stories, often in a light and witty tone. His best-known work, The Monkey's Paw, is a classic horror short story included in The Lady of the Barge (1902); noted for its tight suspense and sudden twists, it is still widely anthologized in horror collections. The library holds 109 of his works, including The Lady of the Barge and Others, Ship's Company, A Tiger's Skin, Captains All, and Night Watches; his common category is inspirational growth. Public information is limited and details of his life are largely unavailable, yet his fiction is distinctive in subject, blending humor with horror, and has had a lasting influence on later short-story writing.