A hydrothermal route has been designed for the synthesis of the Fe0.985S necklace-like chains with no surfactant needed. And the products consist of flower-like spheres in the diameter of ca. 2 mu m, and they are in close contact with each other, forming necklace-like chains with lengths oftens of micrometers. The coercivity field (Hc) of the sample is determined as 48 Oe, which is greatly enhanced relative to the bulk value ca. 10 Oe. The excellent stability and the hierarchical self-assembled architecture afford a model system for fundamental investigations and promising applications in various fields of nanotechnology-based materials. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.