Obituary VIR. W. W. JACOBS NAUTICAL HUMOUR Mr.' W. W. Jacobs, the author; who died jn a London nursing home yesterday, was a humorist of rare and ripe flavour, and in another vein which he worked all too rarely, he was a master of the uncanny. His most favoured subjects were the mis- adventures-financial, marital, alcoholic, and Wlat not-of the salt in port, and his tech- niquie in this kind was inimitable. -When that celebrated figure the Night Watchmran bcgan a story with a phrasc like " Speakin' o' wummin . . ." the reader could settle down to a gay, whimsical, disreputable history. In general the story came from the mouth of a narrator (often the Night Watchman) and was told in the racy idiom 6f the people, which in Jacobs?s hands was itself an additional source of humour. His economy of style and power of suggestion were most nbtablc; he held his own tongue and let his characters speak. Then there were tales of the supernatural, all too few, but extremely able. The most. famous of these is " The Monkey's Paw," which gives the atihentic frison and which made an ex- cellent broadcast play. WiRiam Wymark Jacobs was born in Wapping, East London, on September 8, 1863, son of Villiam Gage Jacobs, a whlarf manager; and so he was early thrown into the company of those longshoremen and sailors whose idio- syncrasies he was later to make famous. Educated at various private schools, be entered the Savings Bank Department of the Civil Service in 1883, and remained there as a clerk until 1899. His, earliest writings were published anonymously in post office journals. but his first professional wvork was seen in the Idler and To-day, both edited by Jerome K. Jerome. A humorist himself, Jerome was quick to recognize thc merit of Jacobs and fanned the spark. By the middle' of the nineties Jacobs had penetrated into the' more widely circulated and highly paid sheets of the Strantd Magazine, then edited by George Newvnes, and in 1896 his first volume of short stories. called ." Many Cargoes." It had an inmnediate and a continuing success, as also had " The Skipper's Wooing," which appeared the following year; but Jacobs, wisely enough, waited until his third book, " Sea Urchins'" (1898), bad confirmed his literary vocation before abandoning the safe waters of the Civil Service. From 1899 onwards he lived entirely by his pen: and, since his popularity grew with tbe years, he was free to do what he wished and lacked nothing. He settled at .Berkhimsted for a time.; later he livedin St. John's Wood for part of the year and spent the summer months on what he called a " home-made farm " at Epping, where for a while he had as neighbour Arlhur Morrison, author of " Tales of Mean Streets." Another friend was Will Oweri, who often illustrated Jacobs's stories in the Sira,;'d; and the two spent much time wandering from one small coastal inn toc anothler, talking to characters in the little ports and gaining fresh ideas for stories. Once in a while, indeed' some old skipper would pro- dtuce a narration that needed little refashion- ipg to turn it into a tvpical " W. W. Jacobs." Jacobs' published about 20 volumes, chiefly collections of short stories, ander suchl titles as" "Light Freights" (1901), "The I-dy of the Barge ' (1902). " Sailors' Knots " (1909), ' Deep Waters " (1919), and " Sea Whispers " (1926). He also wrote a number of one-act plays, like " Establishing Relations " and " Dixon's Return ": and various stories like " Beauty and the Barge " and " The Monkey's Paw " were dramatized in collaboration with Louis N. Parker and successfully played. Several film versions have been made of " The Monkey's Paw." Jacobs was fair, slight, of middling stature, low voiced, and had a some- what wistful expression; Quiet, gentle, and modest, he was not fond of large functions and crowds,. He was a member of the Garrick Club and won esteem and affection among those who knew him. - In 1900 he married Agnes Eleanor Williams and had two sons and three daughters.