Jacobs wrote twelve volumes of short stories (more than one hundred and fifty stories), five full-length novels and one volume with two long short stories. His most famous story is 'The Monkey's Paw', a horror story, but, between 1896 and 1926, he was best known for his humorous stories set amongst the working-class of Wapping, the Thames inns and Suffolk villages. P G Wodehouse said in 1974: " When I started out as a writer..Jacobs represented to me perfection. Others might abide my question, but he was free, as the fellow said. Even in my early twenties, when my critical facilities were nothing to write home about, I could see how good he was and how simply and unerringly he got his effects, and nothing has changed my high opinion of him since. He was unique, and still is.