Inside the story
Meet Jabez Wilson
Jabez Wilson is a red-haired London pawnbroker whose business keeps him occupied at his shop. Gullible and curious, he is drawn into an unusual salaried job copying an encyclopaedia, leaving him eager to understand the strange opportunity and its terms.
On the page
A stout, elderly, pompous and slow-moving pawnbroker, obese and portly, whose most remarkable feature is a blazing shock of fiery red hair; ruddy fair skin with a fish tattooed above the right wrist. Dressed in shabby respectability: a faded brown overcoat with a wrinkled velvet collar, a drab waistcoat crossed by a heavy brassy Albert watch-chain hung with a square pierced Chinese coin, and a frayed grey top hat.
