Odd Craft

by W.W. Jacobs

This book consists of the following short storied:

The Money-Box
The Castaway
Blundell's Improvement
Bill's Lapse
Lawyer Quince
Breaking a Spell
Establishing Relations
The Changing Numbers
The Persecution of Bob Pretty
Dixon's Return
A Spirit of Avarice
The Third String
Odd Charges
Admiral Peters

255 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1936

About the author

William Wymark Jacobs was an English author of short stories and novels. Quite popular in his lifetime primarily for his amusing maritime tales of life along the London docks (many of them humorous as well as sardonic in tone). Today he is best known for a few short works of horror fiction. One being "The Monkey's Paw"(published 1902). It has in its own right become a well-known and widely anthologized classic.


~Literary Works

Many Cargoes (1896)
The Skipper's Wooing (1897)
Sea Urchins (1898) /aka More Cargoes (US) (1898)
A Master of Craft (1900)
The Monkey's Paw (1902)
The Toll House (1902)
Light Freights (1901)
At Sunwich Port (1902)
The Barge (1902)
Odd Craft (1903) : contains The Money Box, basis of Laurel and Hardy film Our Relations (1935)
Dialstone Lane (1902)
Captain's All (1905)
Short Cruises (1907)
Salthaven (1908)
Sailors' Knots (1909)
The Toll House (1909)
Ship's Company (1911)
Night Watches (1914)
The Castaways (1916)
Deep Waters (1919)
Sea Whispers (1926)

Reviews

[William · Rating 4 out of 5]

Entertaining listening 🔰😀

Fourteen will written British romantic relationship adventure thrillers by W. W. Jacobs. I read these as individual novellas and found them entertaining fun listening 🎶 due to eye damage and issues as Alexa reads to me. I would recommend this novel or the individual novellas. Enjoy the adventure of reading 👓 or listening 🎶to different types of novels 👍🏰😃🏡 2022

[Shane Rajiv · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great insight into Wapping life written around 1900. Lots of stories in pubs, people cheating you out of your money, fortune tellers. Such fun to read especially if you know Wapping well and like history.

[Mike Jennings · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love W.W. Jacobs's short stories.

Simple tales written so well you'd think you were having them read to you (by an old ship's hand with a voice like Christopher Lee, in a dark pub, by a fire, with drinks on the table and a storm blowing outside in the night).

[Richard · Rating 4 out of 5]

More of the same: droll tales of seamen getting into trouble. I've read a number of these collections now and either they're getting better or I am warming up to them. This one includes recurring characters conman Bob Pretty and the hapless Ginger Dick. What I like is the author's ability to put his characters into ridiculous conflicts. No one changes much as a result, and the endings are generally a letdown, but like the ending of a "Three Stooges" short, that's not the point.

[Karen · Rating 2 out of 5]

I like his novels more than short stories.