First published in Harper’s Monthly in September 1902 and collected later that year in The Lady of the Barge, W. W. Jacobs’s tale “The Monkey’s Paw” is a work of supernatural fiction. Set in an isolated home on a cold and stormy night, the story turns on the arrival of a mysterious talisman said to grant three wishes. What follows is a tale of fate, grief, and the peril of tampering with forces meant to lie beyond human reach. Jacobs builds tension that culminates in the ending.