W. W. Jacobs (1863 – 1943) was an English short story writer & novelist. He mainly wrote stories about sailors and the marine life. Humour was his favoured genre. But his most renowned story remains the macabre horror story The Monkey’s Paw.
I finished the short story collection Sailor’s Knots by Jacobs a while ago. I read another one of his short story collections, The Lady of the Barge and Other Stories, last year. It had the horror classic, The Monkey’s Paw in it. I had quite enjoyed The Lady of the Barge and Other Stories. I picked up Sailor’s Knots because it contains another one of Jacobs’ famous horror short stories, The Toll-House, in it.
Sailor’s Knots was published in 1909. This collection includes twelve short 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. All of the stories, except for The Toll-House, are light-hearted and humorous in nature.
Most of the stories in Sailor’s Knots feature accounts of the village life, sailors and life at the sea.
I’m sadly disappointed at this collection. Sentence Deferred was the only story that I found to be clever and funny. Odd Man Out, Peter’s Pence and Keeping Up Appearances were okay. The horror story The Toll-House was only mildly scary.
On the bright side, this is an extremely short book. The short stories are truly short. Most of them don’t go beyond even ten pages.
Overall, Sailor’s Knots is not as enjoyable as I thought it would be. A rather unsatisfactory collection of stories.
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