William Wymark Jacobs

William Wymark Jacobs (born September 8, 1863 in Wapping , London , † September 1, 1943 in Islington , London) was an English writer of short stories and novels. He is known for his macabre stories such as " Die Affenpfote " (published in 1902) and " The Toll House " (from the short story collection " The Lady of the Barge "). His favorite subject was seafaring.

Life

Jacobs' father, who worked in the Port of London, enabled his son to attend a private school in London. He later studied at Birkbeck College in 1879, he began to work as an employee in the service of the General Post Office .

In 1885 he published his first short story. Success came slowly, however. Jacobs was sufficiently financially secure to quit his post in 1899 and marry a year later. Jacobs settled in Loughton , Essex , where he owned two houses: the Outlook in Park Hill and the Feltham House in Goldings Hill. In the latter one is now home to Blue plaque ( blue plaque ) in his honor, a custom in the UK by the connection of a celebrity with a certain place to remember. Loughton is the real equivalent of the fictional place Claybury from some of his stories. Jacobs' love for the forest there is evident in his story Land of Cockaigne . Jacobs' wife was considered a militant suffragette .

In the period around the First World War , Jacobs gradually stopped writing short stories and devoted himself to adapting his earlier works for the theater stage. His first play was The Ghost of Jerry Bundler and premiered in 1899, performed again in 1902 and finally published in 1908.

Jacobs died on September 1, 1943, in Islington, London, as he had wished. His daughter Olwen Wymark (1932-2013) also became a writer. She married the British actor Patrick Wymark , who named himself after William Wymark Jacobs. Actress Jane Wymark is his granddaughter.

Works

His first collection of stories, "Many Cargoes", published in 1896, was a great success. This was followed by the novel "The Skipper's Wooing" in 1897 and another collection of stories, "Sea Urchins" (1898). Other of his works are for example "Captains All", "Sailors' Knots", and "Night Watches". The title of the last one refers to the most frequently recurring character: The night watchman on the quay of Wapping , who tells of the absurd adventures of his friends Ginger Dick, Sam Small, and Peter Russett.

These three - just returned from a long sea voyage with their pockets full - rent themselves there together with the intention of spending a pleasant while ashore. But the shrewd inhabitants of the harbor district of London quickly relieve the gullible and useless seamen of the contents of their pockets. Jacobs shows a great deal of empathy in using the crude dialect of the London East End , which has earned him the respect of other authors such as PG Wodehouse , who calls Jacobs in his autobiographical work Bring on the Girls (written with Guy Bolton , 1953).

The stories from Many Cargoes had initially been gradually published in various places, while those in Sea Urchins were largely reprinted in Jerome K. Jerome's The Idler . From October 1898, Jacobs 'stories were published in The Strand , a collaboration that lasted almost to Jacobs' death and provided him with financial security.

bibliography

• Many Cargoes (1896)
• The Skipper's Wooin (1897)
• Sea Urchins (1898) also More Cargoes (US) (1898)
• A Master of Craft (1900)
• The Monkey's Paw (1902)
• Light Freights (1901)
• At Sunwich Port (1902)
• The Lady of the Barge (1902)
• Odd Craft (1903)
• Dialstone Land (1902)
• Captain's All (1905)
• Short Cruises (1907)
• Salthaven (1908)
• Sailor's Knots (1909)
• Ship's Company (1911)
• Night Watches (1914)
• The Castaways (1916)
• Deep Waters (1919)
• Sea Whispers (1926)

Individual evidence

1. ^ At that time called Birkbeck Literary ; now part of the University of London .

Web links

• Literature by and about William Wymark Jacobs in the catalog of the German National Library
• The Toll-House eBook (free of charge; accessed April 16, 2010)