The Lady of the Barge

William Wymark Jacobs (8 September 1863 – 1 September 1943) was an English author of short fiction and drama. His best remembered story is "The Monkey's Paw". He was born in Wapping, London, on 8 September 1863, the son of William Gage Jacobs and his wife Sophia, née Wymark. His father ran the South Devon wharf at Lower East. William and his siblings were still young when their mother died. Their father then married his housekeeper and had seven more children. Jacobs attended a private London school before Birkbeck College (Birkbeck Literary and Scientific Institution, now part of the University of London), where he befriended William Pett Ridgcap.