Saki - A Short Story Collection

Written by Saki

Narrated by David Shaw Parker, Ghizela Rowe and Mark Rice-Oxley

Hector Hugh Munro, more familiarly known by his pen-name ‘Saki’ was born in what was then Akyab in British Burma on 18th December 1870. His father was an Inspector General for the Indian Imperial Police, and his mother the daughter of a Rear Admiral.

When he was 2 his mother died and he and his siblings were sent back to England to be raised by their grandmother and paternal maiden aunts in a strict, puritanical household near Barnstaple, Devon. Educated by governesses Saki used many of these women as character models for his later writing.

At 17 his father retried and returned to England and then embarked on a series of European travels with Saki and his siblings.

After a short stint working in Burma with the Indian Imperial Police Saki decided to move to London to make a living as a writer. Initially he wrote as a journalist for a number of newspapers and magazines before attempting an historical study, ‘The Rise of the Russian Empire’, whose real value lay in directing him to writing short stories instead, the first of which, ‘Dogged’, he published in 1899.

From here it was a short stab of the pen to writing political satire before in 1902 he became the foreign correspondent for The Morning Post, first in the Balkans, then Russia, Paris and back to London in 1908, where 'the agreeable life of a man of letters with a brilliant reputation awaited him.'

Collections of his short stories full of witty, mischievous and often macabre stories that satirized Edwardian society and two novels now appeared in the years up to the Great War. At its’ outbreak he was 43 but managed to join as an ordinary trooper. More than once he returned to the battlefield when officially too sick or injured.

On 14th November 1916 Hector Hugh Munro was sheltering in crater during the Battle of the Ancre, when he was shot and killed by a German sniper. According to several sources, his last words were "Put that bloody cigarette out!"

1 - Saki - A Short Story Collection - An Introduction

2 - The Reticence of Lady Anne by Saki

3 - The Open Window by Saki

4 - A Bread and Butter Miss by Saki

5 - The Story of St Vespaluus by Saki

6 - Esme by Saki

7 - Laura by Saki

8 - Filboid Studge, the Story of a Mouse That Helped by Saki

9 - The Mouse by Saki

10 - The Easter Egg by Saki

11 - The Bull by Saki

12 - The She-Wolf by Saki

13 - The Interlopers by Saki

• Language: English
• Publisher: The Copyright Group
• Release date: Jun 25, 2021
• ISBN: 9781803540238

Saki

Saki (1870-1916) was the pen name of British novelist and short story writer Hector Hugh Munro. Born in British Burma, Munro was the son of Inspector General Charles Augustus Munro of the Indian Imperial Police and his wife Mary Frances Mercer. Following his mother’s death from a tragic accident in 1872, Munro was sent to live in England with his paternal grandmother. In 1893, he returned to Burma to work for the Indian Imperial Police but was forced to resign in just over a year due to serious illness. He moved to London in 1896 to pursue a career as a writer. He found some success as a journalist and soon published The Rise of the Russian Empire (1900), a work of history. Emboldened, he began writing stories and novels, earning praise for Reginald (1904), a short story collection, and When William Came (1913), an invasion novel. Known for his keen wit and satirical outlook on Edwardian life, Munro was considered a master literary craftsman in his time. A gay man, he was forced to conceal his sexual identity in order to avoid criminal prosecution. At 43 years of age, he enlisted in the British cavalry and went to France to fight in the Great War. He was killed by a German sniper at the Battle of the Ancre.