Saki, The Complete Short Stories

by Saki

Hector Hugh Munro, or Saki, as he was known to his avid readers, worked as a news correspondent who had ample opportunity to travel the world and observe many cultures of the East. He lifted his pen name from the popular Rubáiyat of Omar Khayyám. In Farsi, the word "saki" means wine.

His short satirical stories, filled with well-turned phrases and cynical irony, are reminiscent of O. Wilde and O. Henry. Black humor permeates almost all of Saki's work. In the realm of social satire, Munro influenced Evelyn Waugh and Wodhouse.

Paperback

Published November 2, 2000

About the author

British writer Hector Hugh Munro under pen name Saki published his witty and sometimes bitter short stories in collections, such as The Chronicles of Clovis (1911).

His sometimes macabre satirized Edwardian society and culture. People consider him a master and often compare him to William Sydney Porter and Dorothy Rothschild Parker. His tales feature delicately drawn characters and finely judged narratives. "The Open Window," perhaps his most famous, closes with the line, "Romance at short notice was her specialty," which thus entered the lexicon. Newspapers first and then several volumes published him as the custom of the time.

His works include
* a full-length play, The Watched Pot , in collaboration with Charles Maude;
* two one-act plays;
* a historical study, The Rise of the Russian Empire , the only book under his own name;
* a short novel, The Unbearable Bassington ;
* the episodic The Westminster Alice , a parliamentary parody of Alice in Wonderland ;
* and When William Came: A Story of London under the Hohenzollerns , an early alternate history.

Oscar Wilde, Lewis Carroll, and Joseph Rudyard Kipling, influenced Munro, who in turn influenced A. A. Milne, and Pelham Grenville Wodehouse.