touch in his use of the coarse vernacular of the East End of London, which attracted the respect of such writers as P. G. Wodehouse, who mentions Jacobs in his autobiographical work Bring on the Girls!, written with Guy Bolton and published in 1954. The stories in Many Cargoes had varied previous serial publication, while those in Sea Urchins were for the most part published in Jerome K. Jerome's Idler. From October 1898, Jacobs's stories appeared in the Strand, which provided him with financial security almost up to his death. John Drinkwater described Jacobs's fiction as "in the Dickens tradition". Dramatic work Jacobs's short-story output declined somewhat around the time of the First World War. His literary efforts thereafter were mainly adaptations of his own short stories for the stage. His first stage work, The Ghost of Jerry Bundler, opened in London in 1899, was revived in 1902 and was eventually published in 1908. He wrote 18 plays altogether, some in collaboration with other writers. Personal life Jacobs married Agnes Eleanor Williams in 1900 at West Ham, Essex. Agnes was later a noted suffragette. The 1901 Census records their living with a first child, a three-month-old daughter, at Kings Place Road, Buckhurst Hill, Essex. Also recorded in the household were his journalist sister Amy, his sister-in-law, Nancy Williams, a cook, and an additional domestic servant. Altogether the Jacobs had two sons and three daughters. Jacobs went on to set up home in Loughton, Essex, first at the Outlook in Park Hill, and then at Feltham House in Goldings Hill, which bears a blue plaque to him. Loughton is the "Claybury" of some of the stories; Jacobs's love for the local forest scenery features in "Land Of Cockaigne". Another blue plaque appears on Jacobs's central London residence at 15 Gloucester Gate, Regents Park (later held by the Prince of Wales's Institute of Architecture). Jacobs stated that after his youthful left-wing opinions, his political position in later years was "Conservative and Individualistic". On 7 January 1914, in King's Hall, Covent Garden, Jacobs was a member of the jury in the mock trial of John Jasper for the murder of Edwin Drood. At this all-star event G. K. Chesterton was Judge and George Bernard Shaw appeared as foreman of the jury. In 1928 he was involved in the creation of films of his works. The first film made was titled "The Bravo". Fifty