Hector Hugh Munro, also known as H.H. Munro and best known by his pen name Saki, was a Scottish writer of plays, short stories, and novels. His work is characterized by its use of wit and satire targeted at Edwardian-era English society and convention.
Born in Akyab, Burma, Munro lived with his parents until his mother died. Munro’s father, an officer in Burma's colonial police force, sent Saki and his siblings to live with their grandmother and aunts in England. Munro did not enjoy his stay with his extended family, who were strict and overbearing, and his works contain frequent references to aunt characters often cast as antagonists.
Scholars have complained about the dearth of biographical information about Munro. Many attribute this lack to the fact that Munro’s sister, Ethel, destroyed all of his papers in 1955 so that nobody else could add to the biography she was already writing abut her brother. Some speculate that Ethel also wanted to keep hidden facts that would support rumors that her brother was gay.
Under the pen name Saki, Munro published over one hundred short stories, five plays, two novels, and dozens of sketches, political satires, and essays. Scholars argue that Munro chose the pen name "Saki" in order to write works distinct from the writings he produced as a newspaper correspondent. However, the distinction became muddied after his death. In the present day, most of Saki’s writings are attributed to H.H. Munro, with Saki written in parentheses or brackets.
The Complete Short Stories of Saki is a comprehensive collection of the short fiction published by the writer born as Hector Hugh Munro. Writing under the pen name Saki, the British writer published the first of what would come to be known as “...
“The Interlopers” first appeared in the magazine The Bystander in 1912 and again in The Toys of Peace and Other Papers (1919), a collection of short stories published posthumously and compiled by Saki’s friend, Rothay Reynolds. The story features...
Published in 1914, Saki's "The Lumber Room" is a comedic short story about Nicholas, a mischievous upper-class English boy who uses his cleverness and imagination to subvert his aunt's authority.
After putting a frog in his breakfast, Nicholas has...
Just before the final essential, insightful and revealing conversation between Mrs. Packletide and Louisa Mebbin which brings this story to an end, a character identified only as Clovis makes a suggestion to the title character that she throw a “...
Arguably the most popular of Saki’s short stories, “The Open Window” first appeared in Beasts and Super Beasts, a collection of short stories published in 1914 just before Munro went to fight in World War I. “The Open Window” is appreciated most...
The Storyteller is one of the best-known short stories written by Saki, the pen name of author H. H. Munro. It was first published in 1897; as was customary at the time, it was published in newspapers before its publication in a collection of...
“Tobermory” was first published in 1909 in The Westminster Gazette. The original version of the story did not include the character Clovis. The story was later revised for book publication and the revised version incorporated Clovis, a character...
