W. W. JACOBS
The Monkey’s Paw
THE MONKEY’S PAW
You can make three wishes. You can ask for three things – anything in the world. You can wish for the moon, the sun, the stars. How wonderful, you say. But think about it for a minute. When your wish comes true, that is only the beginning. When you change one thing, then you change another, and another. Perhaps you don’t want these other changes, but how can you stop them?
The White family in this story can make three wishes. At first they laugh, and say, ‘It’s not possible. And what can we wish for? What do we need?’ But they make a wish, and then they wait for something to happen.
The next day, their first wish comes true, and suddenly, their life is like a terrible, terrible dream …
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DPOxford University Press is a department of the University of OxfordIt furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide inOxford New YorkAuckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei TorontoWith offices inArgentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine VietnamOXFORD and OXFORD ENGLISH are registered trade marks of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countriesThis simplified edition © Oxford University Press 2008Database right Oxford University Press (maker)First published in Oxford Bookworms 19892 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1No unauthorized photocopyingAll rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the ELT Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address aboveYou must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose this same condition on any acquirerAny websites referred to in this publication are in the public domain and their addresses are provided by Oxford University Press for information only. Oxford University Press disclaims any responsibility for the contentISBN 978 0 19 478910 3A complete recording of this Bookworms edition of The Monkey’s Paw is available on audio CD ISBN 978 0 19 478845 8Printed in Hong Kong Illustrated by: Kevin JonesThe publishers are grateful to the Society of Authors, as literary repesentatives of the Estate of W.W. Jacobs, for permission to create this simplified editionWord count (main text): 4830 wordsFor more information on the Oxford Bookworms Library, visit www.oup.com/elt/bookwormswww.oup.com/elt/bookwormse-Book ISBN 978 0 19 463022 1e-Book first published 2015 
