Saki
1870–1916
Biography
Saki was the pen name of Hector Hugh Munro (1870–1916), a British writer. He was born in Akyab, in Burma, which was then part of British India, and he grew up in England after his mother died when he was young; his aunts had a large part in bringing him up. He worked as a journalist and foreign correspondent, reporting from the Balkans and Russia before the First World War. When the war began he joined the army, and he was killed in action in France in November 1916.
Munro wrote most famously in the short story, and his pieces first appeared in newspapers and magazines before they were gathered into books such as Reginald (1904) and The Chronicles of Clovis (1911). His stories are witty, sharp and often cruel, and they mock Edwardian society, its manners and its self-satisfaction. He also wrote a short novel, The Unbearable Bassington, a parody called The Westminster Alice, and When William Came (1913), a fantasy about a German occupation of Britain. Writers as different as A. A. Milne and P. G. Wodehouse were influenced by his manner, and he is widely regarded as a master of the short form.
On this site you can read Beasts and Super-Beasts, a collection of stories published in 1914. Many of them take animals and the people around them as their subject, and they show the same cutting wit that made his name, with human vanity and cruelty often turning out to be the real joke. It is a good first book for anyone who wants to see why Munro is still read.
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Books
Beasts and Super-Beasts
by Saki
Beasts and Super-Beasts is a collection of short stories, written by Saki (the literary pseudonym of Hector Hugh Munro) and first published in 1914. The title parodies that of George Bernard Shaw's Man and Superman. Along with The Chronicles of Clovis, Beasts and Super-Beasts is…
Summary from Wikipedia: Beasts and Super-Beasts (CC BY-SA 4.0)