W. W. Jacobs' In the Library: A Detailed Summary and Literary Analysis
- Michael Kellermeyer
- Aug 14
- 6 min read
Edgar Allan Poe’s influence on W. W. Jacobs is unmistakable and surfaces repeatedly throughout Jacobs’ body of work. Poe’s tales such as Descent into the Maelstrom, The Oblong Box, MS. Found in a Bottle, and The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym left a discernible imprint on Jacobs’ nautical fiction. Like Poe, Jacobs deftly blends maritime jargon with sharp, often sardonic observations about human frailty, intellectual pride, vanity, and the ever-present shadow of fear. His sailors are not merely seafarers—they are vessels of psychological complexity, caught between the rational and the irrational, the mundane and the macabre. In the Library draws heavily from Poe’s darker psychological tales, particularly The Tell-Tale Heart, The Imp of the Perverse, and The Black Cat. Jacobs channels Poe’s fascination with guilt, madness, and moral disintegration, crafting a narrative that plunges into the turbulent psyche of a murderer. The story eschews elaborate exposition, instead immersing the reader in the shifting tides of the protagonist’s mental state after the crime has been committed. This focus on psychological unraveling lends the tale a visceral immediacy and a chilling intimacy. Much like Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, Jacobs traces the arc of a killer’s descent—from cold-blooded executioner to evasive manipulator, from trembling fugitive to calculating schemer, and ultimately to a creature undone by his own conscience, reduced to a cornered animal and shattered soul. The transformation is rendered with startling realism, and Jacobs’ prose—spare yet evocative—amplifies the claustrophobic tension that builds as the character spirals inward.
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Beyond its psychological depth, In the Library also explores the theme of moral inversion: the idea that intellect, when divorced from empathy, can become a tool of destruction. Jacobs probes the paradox of self-awareness—how the very faculties that allow us to reflect and reason can also lead us to justify the unjustifiable. In this way, the story aligns with the Gothic tradition’s preoccupation with duality and inner torment. Additionally, Jacobs’ tale stands as a bridge between Victorian horror and modern psychological thriller. While grounded in the atmospheric dread of 19th-century ghost stories, it anticipates the introspective horror of later writers like Shirley Jackson and Patricia Highsmith. Its literary value lies not only in its homage to Poe but in its subtle evolution of the genre—shifting the locus of terror from external forces to the haunted corridors of the mind.
SUMMARY
Trayton Burleigh and James Fletcher, co-inheritors of a bachelor household and business, sit tensely in their shared library on a wet, oppressive night. The room, a blend of study and smoke-room, reflects the domestic comfort Burleigh is about to lose. Fletcher has discovered Burleigh’s financial misconduct and offers him a grim ultimatum: leave quietly with £200 or face disgrace and prison. “I will never have you darken the office again, or sit in this house after to-night,” Fletcher declares, sealing Burleigh’s fate. Burleigh, desperate and humiliated, pleads for compromise, suggesting they repay the stolen funds gradually. Fletcher refuses, insisting on full restitution and Burleigh’s exile. The tension escalates as Burleigh, consumed by rage and despair, retrieves a Japanese sword from the wall and threatens Fletcher. “I give you one chance, Fletcher,” he says, grimly. Fletcher remains defiant: “I mean what I said.” The confrontation ends violently—Burleigh stabs Fletcher, who collapses in silence.
In the aftermath, Burleigh is stunned by the finality of his act. He examines the body, then methodically extinguishes the gaslight and retreats from the scene. The mundane details of the house—the ticking clock, the familiar furniture—contrast sharply with the horror upstairs. Outside, a constable passes by, and Burleigh feigns casualness, terrified that Fletcher might still cry out. “Suppose the thing upstairs was not quite dead and should cry out?” he wonders, gripped by paranoia.
Back in his bedroom, Burleigh begins plotting his escape. He gathers money and valuables, considers disguises, and imagines a new life abroad. He debates whether to flee to the city or the seaside, weighing anonymity against the risk of recognition. “One might mean life, and the other death. Which?” he muses, overwhelmed by the stakes. The psychological strain deepens as he becomes hyper-aware of every sound in the house.
Suddenly, he hears creaking floorboards and a cat’s cry. Something—or someone—is moving stealthily on the stairs. He peers out and sees Fletcher’s bedroom door handle turn. The library door, which he had closed, now stands ajar. Inside, he hears a chair scrape against the wall. In a panic, Burleigh slams the door shut and locks it, only to hear frantic cries from within: “For God’s sake, open the door! There’s something here!”
Burleigh realizes someone has entered the house while the front door was left open—a vagrant or burglar now trapped in the library with Fletcher’s corpse. Seeing an opportunity to deflect suspicion, Burleigh fires his pistol through the door and calls for help. A constable and sergeant arrive, and together they break into the room and subdue the intruder, who is terrified and bleeding. “It was ’ere when I come,” the man -- referring to the corpse -- insists. “I’ve only just come, and it was ’ere when I come.” The sergeant, unmoved, replies coldly: “It doesn’t signify—ten minutes or ten seconds won’t make any difference.” Burleigh, now playing the role of shocked housemate, accuses the man of murder. The intruder protests, claiming he was locked in and tried to escape. The sergeant finds the Japanese sword and Burleigh asserts, “It used to hang on the wall… He must have snatched it down.”
But the sergeant is not fooled. He watches Burleigh closely, then suddenly snaps handcuffs onto his wrists. “That’s right,” he says calmly, “keep quiet.” Burleigh, stunned, demands they be removed, but the sergeant restrains him and calls for a doctor. Fletcher, it turns out, is not dead. As the doctor arrives and revives him, the mortally wounded man whispers something to the sergeant -- who glances at his prisoner significantly -- sealing Burleigh’s fate. The story ends with Burleigh, now broken and exposed, being led out into the night. The final image is haunting: the murderer undone not by evidence, but by the persistence of life and the weight of conscience. Jacobs masterfully blends suspense, psychological realism, and moral irony, crafting a tale where the killer’s attempt to escape justice only tightens its grip. The story’s power lies in its quiet unraveling—how guilt, fear, and fate converge in a single, claustrophobic night.
ANALYSIS
While not as finely done as Poe’s murder tales – or as some of those who replicated them (Dickens’ “Confession found in Prison” and “The Hanged Man’s Bride,” Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, Oliver Onions’ “The Beckoning Fair One,” and others) – Jacobs’ story is a chilling glimpse into the logic of a murderous mind – one which is disturbingly normal. The sin committed may just as easily have been an overdue mortgage payment, a late term paper, or wrecking a borrowed car. His anxiety is relatable, familiar. He has done something he hasn’t ever imagined, and is now eager to find a way to remove himself from the looming consequences. Like a man caught cheating on his taxes, a woman overheard slandering a friend, or a boy spotted rifling through his babysitter’s underwear drawer, the protagonist is terrified of the blowback that his deed will engender. What can he do to evade punishment? We follow his process of guilt as it shifts up and down. Like a mourner, he flows through his own stages of avoidance: invincibility (denial), spite (anger), desperation (bargaining), terror (depression), and finally, as he is hauled away to prison and thence the gallows – acceptance.
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Jacobs here channels the dark influence of Edgar Allan Poe, who excelled in his intimate explorations of a murderer’s unraveling psyche. Both men wrote a number of narratives which eschewed elaborate exposition, plunging the reader directly into the mental aftermath of a crime, where the protagonist’s attempts at rationalization give way to paranoia, dread, and ultimately collapse. This descent also mirrors the trajectory found in Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, though Jacobs’ style is obviously more economical, favoring tight prose and understated irony over philosophical introspection. The literary merit of “In the Library” lies in its ability to evoke intense psychological realism within a compact structure, using subtle shifts in tone and pacing to mirror the protagonist’s deteriorating mental state. Thematically, the story interrogates the limits of self-control and the inevitability of moral reckoning, suggesting that no intellect—however cunning—can fully suppress the conscience, reflecting the Edwardian fascination with criminal psychology and the emerging field of psychoanalysis, an expression of contemporary anxieties about identity, repression, and the duality of man. Its influence can be traced in later British crime fiction and psychological thrillers, where the focus on internal torment and unreliable narration became central motifs. Jacobs’ tale, though less widely known than “The Monkey’s Paw” or his most famous murder narrative, “The Well,” deserves recognition for its deft handling of psychological horror and its contribution to the evolution of the genre.