| • Science | • People | • Locations | • Timeline |
Saki ( December 18, 1870 - November 14, 1916) was the pen name of Hector Hugh Munro, whose witty and outrageous stories satirized the Edwardian social scene in macabre and cruel ways.
Saki is considered a master of the short story, often compared to O. Henry and Dorothy Parker. His story The Open Window may be his most famous, with a closing line ("Romance at short notice was her speciality") that has entered the lexicon of many writers.
The name Saki is generally believed to have been chosen from the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyam, a poem to which he refers in "Reginald on Christmas Presents". However, an alternative school of thought holds that the author's pseudonym originates with the South American monkey of the same name. "A small, long-tailed monkey from the Western Hemisphere", its nature a balance of gentle shyness with a vicious temper, features as a central character in "The Remoulding of Groby Lington".
Critics note that Munro made misogynist and anti-Semitic comments. Some of the less than feminist comments that he made may be due, in part, to his difficulty with women throughout his life; he never married. He was often confronted by the more fatuous end of female interaction as he attracted many as friends (as can be seen in one short story about women buying stationery). Despite his lampooning of suffragettes and aunts, his stories feature sympathetic portrayals of admirably cool and self-possessed schoolgirls.
Munro was born in Akyab , Burma as the son of Charles Augustus Munro, an inspector-general for the Burma police when that country, now called MyanmarThe Union of Myanmar is a country in Southeast Asia, formerly known as Burma . The name of the country was changed in 1989, and this change of name has been officially recognized by the United Nations. Some national governments, such as the United States, was still part of the British EmpireThe British Empire in the early decades of the 20th century, held sway over a population of 400 500 million people (roughly a quarter of the world's population), and covered nearly 30 million square kilometres, (roughly two-fifths of the world's land area. His mother, the former Mary Frances Mercer, died in 1872Events January 2 Brigham Young, is arrested for bigamy (25 wives). February 20 In New York City the Metropolitan Museum of Art opens. March 1 Yellowstone National Park is established as the world's first national park March 5 George Westinghouse patents t, killed by a runaway cow. He was brought up in EnglandEngland is the largest, the most populous, and the most densely populated of the four " Home Nations" which make up the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (UK). Occupying the south-eastern portion of the island of Great Britain, England with his brother and sister by his grandmother and aunts in a straitlaced household, the humour in which he only appreciated in later life. He used the severity of this household in many stories, notably Sredni Vashtar, in which a young boy keeps a pet ferretIn general use, a ferret is a Domestic Ferret Mustela putorius furo , a creature first bred from the wild European Polecat at least 2,500 years ago. Several other small, elongated carnivorous mammals belonging to the family Mustelidae also have the word " without his guardian's knowledge and the weasel ends up killing the woman who looks after him, apparently to the delight of the boy.
Munro was educated at Pencarwick School in Exmouth and the Bedford Grammar School. In 1893 Munro joined the Burma police. Three years later, failing health forced his resignation and return to England, where he started his career as a journalist, writing for newspapers such as the Westminster Gazette, Daily Express, Bystander, Morning Post, and Outlook.
In 1900 Munro's first book appeared, The Rise of the Russian Empire, a historical study modelled upon Edward Gibbon's famous The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. It was followed in 1902 by Not-So-Stories, a collection of short stories.
From 1902 to 1908 Munro worked as a foreign correspondent for The Morning Post in the Balkans, Russia and Paris, then settled in London. Many of the stories from this period feature the elegant and effete Reginald and Clovis, who take heartless and cruel delight in the discomfort or downfall of their conventional and pretentious elders. In 1914 his novel When William Came was published, in which he portrayed what might happen if the German emperor conquered England.
At the start of World War I, although officially over age, Munro joined the Army as an ordinary soldier, refusing a commission. He was killed by a sniper in France, near Beaumont-Hamel . Munro was sheltering in a shell crater and his last words, according to several sources, were "Put that damned cigarette out!" After his death his sister Ethel destroyed most of his papers and wrote her own account of their childhood.
Saki's work is in the public domain, and some of it can be found on the Web. Much of it was published posthumously.