About this audiobook
This is the full text of W. W. Jacobs’s The Monkey’s Paw (1902), read aloud word for word in about 25 minutes. The video highlights each word as it is spoken, so you can follow the original wording, and adds a who’s-who, five hard words and a short recap after each of 3 parts. The narration is a synthetic voice (Kokoro text-to-speech). The text comes from the public-domain Project Gutenberg edition, ebook 12122, and nothing is cut.
Who is who
Mr. White: The father, an older man who is persuaded to keep the paw. Mrs. White: His wife, who sits knitting by the fire. Herbert: Their grown son, who jokes about the paw. Sergeant-Major Morris: An old friend of the family, back from twenty-one years in India.
Five hard words
- Talisman: A charm believed to have magic power.
- Fakir: A holy man in India.
- Antimacassar: A cloth that covers the back of a chair.
- Avaricious: Greedy for money.
- Fusillade: A rapid burst of firing or knocking.
What happens: A stormy night
On a wet, windy night, the Whites are playing chess when an old friend, Sergeant-Major Morris, visits from India. He shows them a dried monkey’s paw that an old fakir enchanted to grant three wishes, to show that fate rules people’s lives. Morris says he used his own three wishes, and he warns them, but Mr. White keeps the paw and wishes for two hundred pounds. The paw seems to move in his hand.
What happens: The visitor
Next morning the family laughs at their fears, and Herbert goes off to work. That afternoon a stranger from the firm of Maw and Meggins comes to the house. He says Herbert was caught in the machinery. The firm admits no responsibility, but offers two hundred pounds.
What happens: The knock
A week or so after the funeral, Mrs. White begs her husband to use the second wish to bring Herbert back. He is terrified, because he could only recognize the body by its clothing, but he makes the wish. Later there is a knock at the door. She runs to open it while he searches for the paw, and he breathes the third wish. The knocking stops, and the road outside is empty.
A note on the story
The story never says what the first two wishes were for the first owner, and it never shows what is outside the door. Our reading, which is an opinion, is that it works because it leaves both to you.
