The Monkey's Paw

Publication and place in Jacobs’s work

“The Monkey’s Paw” is a supernatural horror short story by the English writer W. W. Jacobs. It first appeared in Harper’s Monthly in September 1902 and was reprinted later that year in Jacobs’s collection The Lady of the Barge. The tale is among the best-known works of early twentieth-century horror. Its compact construction, memorable central object, and carefully withheld final image have helped it remain widely read and repeatedly adapted. Jacobs was especially known for humorous stories about sailors and dockside life, so this stark supernatural tale represents a strikingly different side of his writing.

Plot

On a cold, wet night, the White family—Mr. and Mrs. White and their grown son Herbert—are at home in the secluded Laburnum Villa. Their visitor, Sergeant-Major Morris, tells them about a dried monkey’s paw he brought back from India. It is said to grant its owner three wishes, but Morris warns that it was enchanted to demonstrate that people who interfere with fate may suffer for it. He tries to get rid of the paw, but Mr. White retrieves it. At Herbert’s joking suggestion, his father wishes for two hundred pounds, enough to meet a household financial need.

The following day, a representative of Herbert’s workplace brings news that Herbert has been killed in an accident involving machinery. The family receives two hundred pounds in compensation. The exact fulfillment of the wish makes its cost devastatingly clear. After Herbert’s burial, Mrs. White, overcome by grief, urges her husband to use a second wish to bring their son back. In the middle of the night, they hear a knock at the door. Mr. White fears what might have returned and searches for the paw, while his wife struggles to reach the door. He makes the third wish; the knocking stops. When the door is opened, there is no one outside. The story leaves the precise nature of the return—and the events at the threshold—unshown.

Themes and storytelling

The story’s central concern is the price of trying to bend fate to human desire. The paw offers the appearance of control, but no control over how a wish will be fulfilled or what it will cost. The first wish turns an ordinary hope for money into an unbearable loss; the second arises from grief rather than greed, making the tale’s warning more complicated than a simple lesson against wanting too much. Love cannot undo death, and the longing to reverse loss may expose a family to a different kind of horror. The paw thus becomes a symbol of temptation, the limits of human knowledge, and the danger of treating life as though its consequences could be negotiated in advance.

Jacobs builds suspense by setting the uncanny object against domestic routine. The family’s conversation and familiar surroundings initially make the home feel safe. Morris’s account brings a disturbing possibility into that space, and the story’s measured progression steadily alters its atmosphere. Rather than displaying the horror directly, Jacobs relies on economical dialogue, the characters’ reactions, and the sound at the door. His restrained ending leaves readers to imagine what Mr. White feared and what might have happened if the door had opened sooner. The frame of an English household receiving a mysterious object carried back from India also draws on contemporary ideas of the unfamiliar and the supernatural, while making the threat intimate and domestic.

Reception and legacy

The story was popular with readers and received strong critical attention when it appeared. It has since been included in many anthologies and adapted for stage and screen. Its distinctive combination of a three-wish legend, a domestic setting, escalating suspense, and an unresolved final moment has made it a durable model for supernatural horror. Stephen King has identified the story as an influence on Pet Sematary. Jacobs wrote many more humorous tales than horror stories, but “The Monkey’s Paw” has become his most enduring work and a classic frequently used to introduce readers to the short story form and to the genre’s power to suggest more than it shows.

About the Author

W. W. Jacobs

Early life and education

William Wymark Jacobs was born in London on 8 September 1863. His father, William Gage Jacobs, managed a wharf, and the young Jacobs grew up close to the working life of the Thames-side docks. This setting left a lasting mark on his imagination. Many of his stories feature sailors, dock workers, and coastal communities, though they are often set on shore or at the wharves rather than at sea. His detailed sense of these environments came from familiarity with the people and places around him, not simply from a writer’s invention.

Jacobs received an education at Birkbeck. At about sixteen, he began work as a clerk at the Post Office Savings Bank, a position he disliked. He took up writing for his own amusement, and eventually returned to the waterside world that had shaped his childhood. A trip down the Kent coast provided settings, characters, and plot ideas for later stories. These early experiences help explain the grounded speech and everyday detail that distinguish his fiction.

Writing career and major works

Jacobs became a prolific writer of short fiction. His early collections include Many Cargoes (1896) and Sea Urchins (1898), books that draw on sailors’ lives, dockside settings, and coastal communities. A Master of Craft appeared in 1900, followed by Light Freights in 1901. Much of his work is humorous: he was admired for lively dialogue, economical plotting, and stories that often turn on a carefully prepared surprise. During his lifetime, his reputation rested on a broad body of fiction rather than on one story alone.

In 1902 Jacobs published The Lady of the Barge, the collection in which “The Monkey’s Paw” was reprinted after its first appearance in Harper’s Monthly. The supernatural horror tale became far more famous than the majority of his comic writing, but its compactness and precise control of suspense are characteristic of his craftsmanship. Jacobs also wrote novels, including At Sunwich Port (1902) and Dialstone Lane (1903). Other short-story collections include Odd Craft (1903), Sailors’ Knots (1909), and Deep Waters (1911). Across these works, he repeatedly turned ordinary circumstances into comic, suspenseful, or unexpectedly troubling plots, while keeping his prose direct and his characters recognizably human.

Later life and reputation

Jacobs also wrote for the stage, but short fiction remains the foundation of his literary reputation. He died in Islington, London, on 1 September 1943, shortly before his eightieth birthday. His extensive humorous writing is less widely known today than “The Monkey’s Paw,” a story that has been anthologized and adapted for stage and film. The tale’s influence can be traced in later horror fiction: Stephen King has cited it as an influence on Pet Sematary. Jacobs is remembered both as a skilled craftsman of comic and coastal stories and as the author of one of the most enduring supernatural horror stories in English. The contrast between that single dark classic and the largely humorous character of his wider work is an important part of his literary legacy.

StoryFlow

The Paw’s Arrival and First Wish

This thread follows the arrival of the enchanted object into the White household and the family’s apparently modest first wish.

The Cost of Two Hundred Pounds

This thread traces how a seemingly ordinary financial wish is fulfilled through Herbert White’s fatal workplace accident and the company’s compensation.

The White Family’s Three Wishes

This thread follows the family’s progression from curiosity through bereavement to a final attempt to control the supernatural consequences.

Knowledge Graph

Mr. White Mrs. White Herbert White Sergeant-Major Morris

Knowledge Graph

Storylines

one wet and windy night at Laburnam Villa

The Stormy Chess Game

At [Laburnam Villa](entity:location-recall-location-laburnam-villa-9f3d5cf1f1b4), [Mr. White](entity:character-recall-character-mr-white-382800cab5f6) and [Herbert White](entity:character-recall-character-herbert-white-7fda048a39b6) play chess beside a bright fire while [Mrs. White](entity:character-recall-character-mrs-white-44071bdcaa16) knits nearby. Mr. White makes reckless moves, and Herbert wins; their teasing warmth establishes a family whose ordinary life is sheltered from the storm outside. Mr. White complains about the muddy, isolated road, then hears a visitor arrive. The contrast between domestic comfort and the cold night prepares the ground for the strange object that will intrude on their home.

later that same evening

Morris Returns from India

[Mr. White](entity:character-recall-character-mr-white-382800cab5f6) welcomes his old friend [Sergeant-Major Morris](entity:character-recall-character-sergeant-major-morr-cbff133883c1), recently returned after twenty-one years away. Over drinks, Morris tells the family of distant places, wars, and strange peoples, while the Whites listen eagerly to the experiences he brings from [India](entity:location-recall-location-600eec71fa3c). Mr. White recalls that Morris once mentioned a monkey’s paw. Morris initially dismisses the subject, but the family’s curiosity draws out the story and turns the gathering toward a dangerous curiosity.

during Morris’s visit

The Paw’s Three Wishes

Morris produces a dried monkey’s paw and explains that a holy fakir enchanted it to demonstrate that fate governs human lives and that interference brings sorrow. The spell grants three wishes to each of three separate men. Morris admits that he used his own wishes and says the first owner’s third wish was for death. His grave manner silences the family’s laughter, giving the paw’s promise a history of ruin rather than wonder.

during Morris’s visit

Morris Rejects the Paw

When [Mr. White](entity:character-recall-character-mr-white-382800cab5f6) asks why Morris keeps the paw, Morris says it has already caused enough mischief. He refuses to sell it, explaining that people either dismiss the tale or want to test the charm before paying. Mr. White asks whether Morris would wish again if he could. Morris cannot answer clearly, then throws the paw into the fire and solemnly urges Mr. White to let it burn. Mr. White snatches it back, choosing possession over the warning.

later that same evening

The Warning and the Wish

Morris explains that a wish must be spoken aloud while the paw is held in the right hand, but warns the family about the consequences. [Mrs. White](entity:character-recall-character-mrs-white-44071bdcaa16) jokes about wishing for extra hands, and the family laughs; Morris, alarmed, insists that any wish should at least be sensible. After supper, Morris leaves. Herbert mocks the story and jokes that the family will become rich, while [Mr. White](entity:character-recall-character-mr-white-382800cab5f6) admits he cannot think of anything he needs. Herbert suggests two hundred pounds to clear the house’s financial burden, turning the paw from a curiosity into a tool for a modest, practical desire.

that night

The Paw Twists

With Herbert teasingly playing solemn music, [Mr. White](entity:character-recall-character-mr-white-382800cab5f6) holds the paw and wishes aloud for two hundred pounds. A crash from the piano interrupts the words, and Mr. White cries that the paw twisted in his hand like a snake. Herbert finds no money and dismisses the movement as imagination; [Mrs. White](entity:character-recall-character-mrs-white-44071bdcaa16) comforts her husband. The wish seems to have failed, but Mr. White’s shock leaves an unease that lingers after the family returns to its ordinary routines.

late that night

A Simian Face in the Fire

After the others retire, [Mr. White](entity:character-recall-character-mr-white-382800cab5f6) sits alone watching the dying fire and imagines faces in its glow. The final face looks horribly simian, and he reaches for water to throw at it, only to grasp the paw instead. He shivers, wipes his hand on his coat, and goes upstairs. The strange vision intensifies the story’s atmosphere of dread, though the family still has no proof that the wish has taken effect.

the next morning

Morning Disbelief

In bright winter sunlight, the family laughs at the previous night’s fears. The paw lies carelessly on the sideboard, and [Mrs. White](entity:character-recall-character-mrs-white-44071bdcaa16) calls the story nonsense; [Mr. White](entity:character-recall-character-mr-white-382800cab5f6) nevertheless insists that the object moved in his hand. Herbert jokes that the money might fall from the sky and warns his father not to spend it before he returns. The casual humor shows how completely they underestimate the wish’s power and its cost.

later the next day

The Company Messenger Arrives

Herbert leaves for work, and [Mrs. White](entity:character-recall-character-mrs-white-44071bdcaa16) watches him down the road. When a postman brings only a tailor’s bill, she mocks the family’s hope of sudden riches; at dinner, [Mr. White](entity:character-recall-character-mr-white-382800cab5f6) again maintains that the paw moved. A well-dressed stranger repeatedly approaches and retreats from the gate before finally entering. Mrs. White hastily hides her apron, while the visitor appears uncomfortable and says he has been sent by [Maw and Meggins](entity:organization-recall-organization-maw-and-meggins-95cb5e223332).

the next day

Herbert’s Fatal Accident

The visitor confirms [Mrs. White](entity:character-recall-character-mrs-white-44071bdcaa16)’s fear that something has happened to Herbert. He says Herbert was caught in machinery and is badly hurt, but adds that he is not in pain; the reassurance reveals itself as a grim euphemism when the parents grasp what he means. [Mr. White](entity:character-recall-character-mr-white-382800cab5f6) takes his wife’s hand and tells the messenger that Herbert was their only child. The accident transforms the wish’s apparent failure into catastrophe and brings the family face to face with the cost of the two hundred pounds they requested.

immediately after the accident

Two Hundred Pounds

The messenger conveys [Maw and Meggins](entity:organization-recall-organization-maw-and-meggins-95cb5e223332)’s sympathy and says the company disclaims responsibility. In consideration of Herbert’s service, however, the firm offers the family compensation. [Mr. White](entity:character-recall-character-mr-white-382800cab5f6) asks how much. When the visitor answers, “Two hundred pounds,” the sum precisely matches the wish. [Mrs. White](entity:character-recall-character-mrs-white-44071bdcaa16) shrieks, and Mr. White reaches out blindly before collapsing unconscious, as the wish’s terrible fulfillment becomes undeniable.

about a week after the accident

Herbert’s Burial

The Whites bury Herbert in a large cemetery two miles away and return to a house full of shadow and silence. At first they wait as if another event might somehow lighten their grief, but the days bring only resignation. They speak little and find their days long and empty. The compensation has come, but it cannot restore their son; the wish’s consequence has left the family with money and bereavement in equal measure.

about ten days after Herbert’s death

Mrs. White Remembers the Paw

One night [Mr. White](entity:character-recall-character-mr-white-382800cab5f6) wakes to find his wife crying at the window. He urges her to return to bed, but she replies that the cold is worse for their son, expressing grief that neither time nor resignation has eased. After he dozes, [Mrs. White](entity:character-recall-character-mrs-white-44071bdcaa16) cries out that they still have two wishes. She insists that they use one to bring Herbert back, recasting the paw’s remaining power as a chance to undo their loss.

that night, about ten days after Herbert’s death

The Wish to Revive Herbert

[Mr. White](entity:character-recall-character-mr-white-382800cab5f6) is horrified by his wife’s demand. He reminds her that Herbert has been dead for ten days and that his body was so mutilated he could be identified only by his clothing; he fears what might return if the wish is granted. [Mrs. White](entity:character-recall-character-mrs-white-44071bdcaa16) insists that she is not afraid of the child she nursed and drags him toward the paw. In the darkness, Mr. White retrieves it from the parlour, terrified that the unspoken wish might bring Herbert’s mutilated body into the house before he can escape.

later that night

Herbert’s Return Is Wished

[Mrs. White](entity:character-recall-character-mrs-white-44071bdcaa16) waits with an unnatural expectancy and commands [Mr. White](entity:character-recall-character-mr-white-382800cab5f6) to wish. He calls the act foolish and wicked, but under her insistence raises the paw and wishes aloud for his son to be alive again. The talisman falls to the floor. Mrs. White goes to the window and raises the blind, while Mr. White sits trembling and watches the night pass. The wish’s answer does not come at once, leaving the couple suspended between hope and fear.

later that night

The First Knock

As the candle burns out, [Mr. White](entity:character-recall-character-mr-white-382800cab5f6) feels relief that nothing seems to have happened. The couple lie in silence, listening to the clock and the small sounds in the house, until Mr. White finally takes matches and goes downstairs for a candle. At the foot of the stairs, a quiet, stealthy knock sounds at the front door. The matches fall from his hand; when the knock comes again, he flees upstairs and shuts the bedroom door. The sound turns the feared consequence into a presence just beyond the threshold.

moments after the first knock

The Knocking Grows Louder

[Mrs. White](entity:character-recall-character-mrs-white-44071bdcaa16) wakes as the knocking grows louder. [Mr. White](entity:character-recall-character-mr-white-382800cab5f6) calls it a rat, but she recognizes the sound as Herbert’s and runs for the door, suddenly recalling that the cemetery is two miles away. Mr. White catches her arm and begs her not to let whatever is outside enter. Mrs. White struggles against him, convinced her son has returned; their opposed reactions expose the gulf between her desperate hope and his terror of the body the wish may have summoned.

moments later

The Bolt and the Paw

[Mrs. White](entity:character-recall-character-mrs-white-44071bdcaa16) breaks free and rushes downstairs as the knocking continues. She draws back the chain and struggles with the stiff bottom bolt, calling for [Mr. White](entity:character-recall-character-mr-white-382800cab5f6) to help because she cannot reach it. Mr. White searches frantically on the floor for the paw, desperate to stop the thing outside from entering. As a barrage of knocks fills the house and his wife works the bolt, he finds the talisman and breathes his last wish.

at the ending

The Empty Road

The knocking stops abruptly, though its echoes remain in the house. [Mr. White](entity:character-recall-character-mr-white-382800cab5f6) hears the chair moved and the door opened; a cold wind comes up the staircase, followed by his wife’s long cry of disappointment and misery. He runs downstairs to her and then out to the gate. Under the flickering street lamp, the road is quiet and deserted, leaving the final wish’s exact words unstated but showing that whatever waited outside is gone.