Selected Stories

A beautifully jacketed hardcover selection of 53 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 humor 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, and are occasionally joined by werewolves, tigers, eavesdropping house pets, and casually murderous children. This selection includes such famous stories as "Tobermory," "The Open Window," "Sredni Vashtar," "Mrs. Packletide's Tiger," "The Schartz-Metterklume Method," and many more.

Saki is the pen name of Hector Hugh Munro (1870-1916), also known as H. H. Munro, who was born in Burma to a British officer and sent to live with relatives in England at age two after the death of his mother. After working as a foreign correspondent for The Morning Post in the Balkans, Russia, and Paris, Munro settled in London in 1908 and began publishing the short stories and sketches for which he is remembered. Munro was 43 years old when the First World War began, and although he was beyond the age of conscription, and although he was offered an officer’s commission, he chose to join the army as an ordinary trooper. He was killed in France by a German sniper at the age of 46.