Saki: Selected Stories

Description

A hardcover selection of the darkly witty, whimsical and macabre short stories by an acknowledged master of the form. Saki's dazzling tales manage the remarkable feat of being anarchic and urbane at the same time. Studded with Wildean epigrams and featuring well-contrived plots and surprise endings, his stories gleefully skewer the pompous hypocrisies of upper-class Edwardian society. But they go beyond mere satire, raising dark humour to extremes of entertaining outrageousness that have rarely since been matched. Saki's elegantly mischievous young heroes sow chaos in their wake without breaking a sweat, occasionally assisted by werewolves, tigers, eavesdropping house pets and casually murderous children. This selection of over fifty stories includes such favourites as 'Tobermory', 'The Open Window', 'Sredni Vashtar', 'Mrs Packletide's Tiger', 'The Schartz-Metterklume Method', and many more.

Saki is the pen name of H. H. Munro, born in 1870 in Burma and educated in England. He began his writing career as a journalist and foreign correspondent but later turned to writing fiction - predominantly short stories for which he is best-remembered - as well as one history book. He was 43 when the First World War started. Although he was beyond the age of conscription, and although he was offered an officer's commission, Saki joined the army as an ordinary trooper. He was killed in 1916 in France by a German sniper.