Christmas With Dull People

By Saki

If you've ever stayed with dull people during what is alleged to be the festive season, you'll know a good dose of Saki is the only cure.
These Christmas stories present Saki at his inimitable, satirical best as he addresses the most perilous aspects of the holiday period: visiting dull relatives, tolerating Christmas Eve merriment, receiving unwanted gifts, and writing ecstatic thank-you cards for those aforementioned gifts.
'Reginald's Christmas Revel' and 'Reginald on Christmas Presents' provide us with fabulously droll wit and wisdom from one of Saki's best-loved characters. In 'Bertie's Christmas Eve' the Steffink family is served some Yuletide revenge by young cousin Bertie, while in 'Down Pens' Egbert and Janetta conceive of an ingenious way to never write another thank-you letter again.
The undisputed master of the English short story, never is Saki's satire sharper than when dissecting the customs of the upper classes at Christmas. These are four tales guaranteed to delight and disturb any Christmas gathering.
'Saki is like a perfect martini but with absinthe stirred in . . . heady, delicious and dangerous.' – Stephen Fry
'The best of his stories are still better than the best of just about every other writer around.' – Roald Dahl
'Saki was irreplaceable and unreplaced.' London Review of Books
'His stories are cut-glass beauties, pitiless and hard-edged and constantly poking fun at the pretensions of the middle and upper classes.' – Naomi Alderman
'I took it up to my bedroom, opened it casually and was unable to go to sleep until I had finished it' – Noël Coward

• Language: English
• Publisher: Daunt Books
• Release date: Nov 9, 2017
• ISBN: 9781911547198

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.

Book preview

REGINALD’S CHRISTMAS REVEL

They say (said Reginald) that there’s nothing sadder than victory except defeat. If you’ve ever stayed with dull people during what is alleged to be the festive season, you can probably revise that saying. I shall never forget putting in a Christmas at the Babwolds’. Mrs Babwold is some relation of my father’s – a sort of to-be-left-till-called-for cousin – and that was considered sufficient reason for my having to accept her invitation at about the sixth time of asking; though why the sins of the father should be visited by the children – you won’t find any notepaper in that drawer; that’s where I keep old menus and first-night programmes.

Mrs Babwold wears a rather solemn personality, and has never been known to smile, even when saying disagreeable things to her friends or making out the Stores list. She takes her pleasures sadly. A state elephant at a durbar gives one a very similar impression. Her husband gardens in all weathers. When a man goes out in the pouring rain to brush caterpillars off rose trees, I generally imagine his life indoors leaves something to be desired; anyway, it must be very unsettling for the caterpillars.

Of course there were other people there. There was a Major Somebody who had shot things in Lapland, or somewhere of that sort; I forget what they were, but it wasn’t for want of reminding. We had them cold with every meal almost, and he was continually giving us details of what they measured from tip to tip, as though he thought we were going to make them warm underthings for the winter. I used to listen to him with a rapt attention that I thought