Saki

Not to be confused withSake.

For other uses, seeSaki (disambiguation).

Hector Hugh Munro(18 December 1870 – 14 November 1916), popularly known by hispen nameSakiand also frequently asH. H. Munro,was a British writer whose witty, mischievous and sometimesmacabrestories satirizeEdwardiansociety and culture. He is considered by English teachers and scholars a master of theshort storyand is often compared toO. HenryandDorothy Parker.Influenced byOscar Wilde,Lewis CarrollandRudyard Kipling,Munro himself influencedA. A. Milne,Noël CowardandP. G. Wodehouse.

Hector Hugh Munro
Hector Hugh Munro byE. O. Hoppé(1913)
Born	(1870-12-18)18 December 1870 Akyab,Burma,British India
Died	14 November 1916(1916-11-14)(aged 45) Beaumont-Hamel,France
Pen name	Saki
Occupation	Author, playwright
Nationality	British
Military career
Allegiance	United Kingdom
Service/ branch	British Army
Years of service	1914–1916
Rank	Lance Sergeant
Unit	22nd Battalion,Royal Fusiliers
Battles / wars	First World War Battle of the Somme Battle of the Ancre†

Besides his short stories (which were first published in newspapers, as was customary at the time, and then collected into several volumes), Munro wrote a full-length play,The Watched Pot,in collaboration with Charles Maude; two one-act plays; a historical study,The Rise of the Russian Empire(the only book published under his own name); a short novel,The Unbearable Bassington;theepisodicThe Westminster Alice(aparliamentaryparody ofAlice in Wonderland); andWhen William Came,subtitledA Story of London Under theHohenzollerns,a fantasy about afuture German invasionand occupation of Britain.

Life

Early life

Hector Hugh Munro was born inAkyab (now Sittwe),British Burma,which was then part ofBritish India.Saki was the son of Charles Augustus Munro, anInspector Generalfor theIndian Imperial Police,and his wife, Mary Frances Mercer (1843–1872), the daughter ofRear AdmiralSamuel Mercer. Her nephew Cecil William Mercer became a novelist under the nameDornford Yates.

In 1872, on a home visit to England, Mary Munro was charged by a cow, and the shock caused her to miscarry. She never recovered and soon died.

After his wife's death Charles Munro sent his three children, Ethel Mary (born April 1868), Charles Arthur (born July 1869) and two-year-old Hector, home to England. The children were sent to Broadgate Villa, inPiltonnearBarnstaple,North Devon, to be raised by their grandmother and paternal maiden aunts, Charlotte and Augusta, in a strict and puritanical household. It is said that his aunts were most likely models for some of his characters, notably the aunt in "The Lumber Room" and the guardian in "Sredni Vashtar": Munro's sister Ethel said that the aunt in "The Lumber Room" was an almost perfect portrait of Aunt Augusta. Munro and his siblings led slightly insular lives during their early years and were educated by governesses. At the age of 12 the young Hector Munro was educated at Pencarwick School inExmouthand then as a boarder atBedford School.

In 1887, after his retirement, his father returned from Burma and embarked upon a series of European travels with Hector and his siblings.

Hector followed his father in 1893 into the Indian Imperial Police and was posted to Burma, but successive bouts of fever caused his return home after only fifteen months.

Writing career

In 1896 he decided to move to London to make a living as a writer.

Munro started his writing career as a journalist for newspapers such asThe Westminster Gazette,theDaily Express,The Morning Post,and magazines such as theBystanderandOutlook.His first book,The Rise of the Russian Empire,a historical study modelled uponEdward Gibbon'sThe Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,appeared in 1900, under his real name, but proved to be something of a false start.

While writingThe Rise of the Russian Empire,he made his first foray into short story writing and published a piece called "Dogged" inSt Paul'son February 18, 1899. (Munro's sketch "The Achievement of the Cat" appeared the day before inThe Westminster Budget.) He then moved into the world of political satire in 1900 with a collaboration withFrancis Carruthers Gouldentitled "Alice in Westminster". Gould produced the sketches, and Munro wrote the text accompanying them, using the pen name "Saki" for the first time. The series lampooned political figures of the day (Alice in Downing Streetbegins with the memorable line, "'Have you ever seen an Ineptitude?'" – referring to a zoomorphisedArthur Balfour), and was published in the LiberalWestminster Gazette.

In 1902 he moved toThe Morning Post,described as one of the "organs of intransigence" byStephen Koss,to work as a foreign correspondent, first in the Balkans, and then in Russia, where he was witness to the1905 revolutionin St. Petersburg. He then went on to Paris, before returning to London in 1908, where "the agreeable life of a man of letters with a brilliant reputation awaited him".In the intervening periodReginaldhad been published in 1904, the stories having first appeared inThe Westminster Gazette,and all this time he was writing sketches forThe Morning Post,theBystanderandThe Westminster Gazette.He kept a place in Mortimer Street, wrote, played bridge at the Cocoa Tree Club, and lived simply.Reginald in Russiaappeared in 1910,The Chronicles of Cloviswas published in 1911, andBeasts and Super-Beastsin 1914, along with other short stories that appeared in newspapers not published in collections in his lifetime.

He also produced two novels,The Unbearable Bassington(1912) andWhen William Came(1913).

Death

At the start of theFirst World WarMunro was 43 and officially over-age to enlist, but he refused a commission and joined the2nd King Edward's Horseas an ordinarytrooper.He later transferred to the22nd (Service) Battalion, Royal Fusiliers (Kensington),in which he was promoted tolance sergeant.More than once he returned to the battlefield when officially too sick or injured. In November 1916 he was sheltering in a shell crater nearBeaumont-Hamel,France, during theBattle of the Ancre,when he was killed by a Germansniper.According to several sources, hislast wordswere "Put that bloody cigarette out!"

Legacy

Munro has no known grave. He is commemorated on Pier and Face 8C 9A and 16A of theThiepval Memorial.

In 2003English Heritagemarked Munro's flat at 97Mortimer Street,inFitzroviawith ablue plaque.

After his death, his sister Etheldestroyedmost of his papers and wrote her own account of their childhood, which appeared at the beginning ofThe Square Egg and Other Sketches(1924).Rothay Reynolds,a close friend, wrote a relatively lengthy memoir inThe Toys of Peace(1919), but aside from this, the only other biographies of Munro areSaki: A Life of Hector Hugh Munro(1982) byA. J. Langguth,andThe Unbearable Saki(2007) by Sandie Byrne. All later biographies have had to draw heavily upon Ethel's account of her brother's life.

In late 2020 two Saki stories, "The Optimist" (1912) and "Mrs. Pendercoet's Lost Identity" (1911), which had never been republished, collected, or noted in any academic publication on Saki, were rediscovered; they are now available online.

In 2021, Lora Sifurova, looking through theMorning Postand other London periodicals in Russian archives, rediscovered seven sketches and stories attributed to Munro or Saki.

In 2023, Bruce Gaston rediscovered a Clovis sketch, "The Romance of Business", published as part of an advertisement for Selfridge's in a 1914 issue of theDaily News and Leader.

Sexuality

See also:LGBT rights in the United Kingdom

Munro washomosexualat a time when in Britain sexual activity between men was a crime. TheCleveland Street scandal(1889), followed bythe downfall of Oscar Wilde(1895), meant "that side of [Munro's] life had to be secret".

Pen-name

The pen name "Saki" is a reference to the cupbearer in theRubáiyát of Omar Khayyam.Both Rothay Reynolds and Ethel Munro confirm this.Emlyn Williamsstates as much in his introduction to a Saki anthology published in 1978.

Selected works

Much of Saki's work contrasts the conventions and hypocrisies of Edwardian England with the ruthless but straightforward life-and-death struggles of nature.Writing inThe Guardianto mark the centenary of Saki's death, Stephen Moss noted, "In many of his stories, stuffy authority figures are set against forces of nature—polecats, hyenas, tigers. Even if they are not eaten, the humans rarely have the best of it".

"The Interlopers"

"The Interlopers" is a story about two men, Georg Znaeym and Ulrich von Gradwitz, whose families have fought over a forest in the easternCarpathian Mountainsfor generations. Ulrich's family legally owns the land and so considers Georg an interloper when he hunts in the forest. But Georg, believing that the forest rightfully belongs to his family, hunts there often and believes that Ulrich is the real interloper for trying to stop him. One winter night, Ulrich catches Georg hunting in the forest. Neither man can shoot the other without warning, as they would soil their family's honour, so they hesitate to acknowledge one another. In an "act of God", a tree branch suddenly falls on each of them, trapping them both under a log. Gradually they realize the futility of their quarrel, become friends and end the feud. They then call out for their men's assistance and, after a brief period, Ulrich makes out nine or ten figures approaching over a hill. The story ends with Ulrich's realization that the approaching figures on the hill are actually hungry wolves. The wolves who hunt in packs as opposed to rivalries, it seems, are the true owners of the forest, while both humans are interlopers.

"Gabriel-Ernest"

"Gabriel-Ernest" starts with a warning: "There is a wild beast in your woods…" Gabriel, a naked boy sunbathing by the river, is "adopted" by well-meaning townspeople. Lovely and charming, but also rather vague and distant, he seems bemused by his "benefactors." Asked how he managed by himself in the woods, he replies that he hunts "on four legs," which they take to mean that he has a dog. The climax comes when a small child disappears while walking home from Sunday school. A pursuit ensues, but Gabriel and the child disappear near a river. The only items found are Gabriel's clothes, and the two are never seen again. The story includes many of the author's favourite themes: good intentions gone awry, the banality of polite society, the attraction of the sinister, and the allure of the wild and the forbidden. There is also a recognition of basic decency, upheld when the story's protagonist 'flatly refuses' to subscribe to a Gabriel-Ernest memorial, for his supposedly gallant attempt to save a drowning child, and drowning himself, as well. Gabriel-Ernest was actually awerewolfwho had eaten the child, then run off.

"The Schartz-Metterklume Method"

At a railway station an arrogant and overbearing woman, Mrs Quabarl, mistakes the mischievous Lady Carlotta, who has been inadvertently left behind by a train, for thegoverness,Miss Hope, whom she has been expecting, Miss Hope having erred about the date of her arrival. Lady Carlotta decides not to correct the mistake, acknowledges herself as Miss Hope, a proponent of "the Schartz-Metterklume method" of making children understand history by acting it out themselves, and chooses theRape of the Sabine Women(exemplified by a washerwoman's two girls) as the first lesson. After creating chaos for two days, she departs, explaining that her delayed luggage will include aleopardcub.

"The Toys of Peace"

Preferring not to give her young sons toy soldiers or guns, and having taken away their toy depicting theSiege of Adrianople,Eleanor instructs her brother Harvey to give them innovative "peace toys" as an Easter present. When the packages are opened young Bertie shouts "It's a fort!" and is disappointed when his uncle replies "It's a municipal dustbin." The boys are initially baffled as to how to obtain any enjoyment from models of a school of art and a public library, or from little figures ofJohn Stuart Mill,Felicia Hemansand SirJohn Herschel.Youthful inventiveness finds a way, however, as the boys combine their history lessons on Louis XIV with a lurid and violent play-story about the invasion of Britain and the storming of theYoung Women's Christian Association.The end of the story has Harvey reporting failure to Eleanor, explaining "We have begun too late," not realising he was doomed to failure whenever he had begun.

"The Open Window"

Framton Nuttel, a nervous man, has come to stay in the country for his health. His sister, who thinks he should socialise while he is there, has given him letters of introduction to families in the neighbourhood whom she got to know during her stay. Framton goes to visit Mrs. Sappleton and, while waiting for her to come down, is entertained by her witty, fifteen-year-old niece. The niece tells him that the French window is kept open, even though it is October, because Mrs. Sappleton believes that her husband and her brothers, who drowned in a bog three years before, will come back one day. When Mrs. Sappleton comes down she talks about her husband and her brothers, and how they are going to come back from shooting soon; Framton, believing that she is deranged, tries to distract her by explaining his health condition. Then, to his horror, Mrs. Sappleton points out that her husband and her brothers are coming, whom he sees walking towards the window with their dog. He thinks he is seeing ghosts and flees. Mrs. Sappleton cannot understand why he has run away and, at her husband and brothers' arrival, tells them about the odd man who has just left. The niece explains that Framton ran away because of the spaniel: he is afraid of dogs ever since he was hunted by a pack of stray dogs in India and had to spend a night in a newly dug grave with creatures grinning and foaming just above him. The last line summarizes the situation, saying of the niece, "Romance at short notice was her speciality."

"The Unrest-Cure"

Saki's recurring hero Clovis Sangrail, a clever, mischievous young man, overhears the complacent middle-aged Huddle complaining of his own addiction to routine and aversion to change. Huddle's friend makes the wry suggestion that he needs an "unrest-cure" (the opposite of arest cure), to be performed, if possible, in the home. Clovis takes it upon himself to "help" the man and his sister by involving them in an invented outrage that will be a "blot on the twentieth century".

Photo fromThe War Illustrated,31 July 1915

"Esmé"

A baroness tells Clovis a story about a hyena that she and her friend Constance encountered while out fox hunting. Later, the hyena follows them, stopping briefly to eat a gypsy child. Shortly after this, the hyena is killed by a motorcar. The baroness immediately claims the corpse as her beloved dog Esmé, and the guilty owner of the car gets his chauffeur to bury the animal and later sends her an emerald brooch to make up for her loss.

"Sredni Vashtar"

Main article:Sredni Vashtar

A sickly child named Conradin is raised by his aunt and guardian, Mrs De Ropp, who "would never... have confessed to herself that she disliked Conradin, though she might have been dimly aware that thwarting him 'for his good' was a duty which she did not find particularly irksome". Conradin rebels against his aunt and her choking authority. He invents a religion in which his polecatferretis imagined as a vengeful deity, and Conradin prays that "Sredni Vashtar" will deliver retribution upon De Ropp. When De Ropp attempts to dispose of the animal, it attacks and kills her. The entire household is shocked and alarmed; Conradin calmly butters another piece of toast.

"Tobermory"

Main article:Tobermory (short story)

At a country-house party, one guest, Cornelius Appin, announces to the others that he has perfected a procedure for teaching animals human speech. He demonstrates this on his host's cat, Tobermory. Soon it is clear that animals are permitted to view and listen to many private things on the assumption that they will remain silent, such as the host Sir Wilfred's commentary on one guest's intelligence and the hope that she will buy his car, or the implied sexual activities of some of the other guests. The guests are angered, especially when Tobermory runs away to pursue a rival cat, but plans to poison him fail when Tobermory is instead killed by the rival cat. "An archangel ecstatically proclaiming the Millennium, and then finding that it clashed unpardonably withHenleyand would have to be indefinitely postponed, could hardly have felt more crestfallen than Cornelius Appin at the reception of his wonderful achievement. "Appin is killed shortly afterwards when attempting to teach an elephant in a zoo inDresdento speak German. His fellow house party guest, Clovis Sangrail (Saki's recurring hero), remarks that if he was teaching "the poor beast" irregular German verbs, he deserved no pity.

"The Bull"

Tom Yorkfield, a farmer, receives a visit from his half-brother Laurence. Tom has no great liking for Laurence or respect for his profession as a painter of animals. Tom shows Laurence his prize bull and expects him to be impressed, but Laurence nonchalantly tells Tom that he has sold a painting of a different bull, which Tom has seen and does not like, for three hundred pounds. Tom is angry that a mere picture of a bull should be worth more than his real bull. This and Laurence's condescending attitude give him the urge to strike him. Laurence, running away across the field, is attacked by the bull, but is saved by Tom from serious injury. Tom, looking after Laurence as he recovers, feels no more rancour because he knows that, however valuable Laurence's painting might be, only a real bull like his can attack someone.

"The East Wing"

This is a "rediscovered" short story that was previously cited as a play.A house party is beset by a fire in the middle of the night in the east wing of the house. Begged by their hostess to save "my poor darling Eva—Eva of the golden hair," Lucien demurs, on the grounds that he has never even met her. It is only on discovering that Eva is not a flesh-and-blood daughter but Mrs Gramplain's painting of the daughter she wished that she had had, and which she has faithfully updated with the passing years, that Lucien declares a willingness to forfeit his life to rescue her, since "death in this case is more beautiful," a sentiment endorsed by the Major. As the two men disappear into the blaze, Mrs Gramplain recollects that she "sent Eva to Exeter to be cleaned". The two men have lost their lives for nothing.

Publications

• 1899 "Dogged" (short story, ascribed to H. H. M., inSt. Paul's,18 February)
• 1900The Rise of the Russian Empire(history)
• 1902 "The Woman Who Never Should" (political sketch inThe Westminster Gazette,22 July)
• 1902The Not So Stories(political sketches inThe Westminster Annual)
• 1902The Westminster Alice(political sketches with illustrations byF. Carruthers Gould)
• 1904Reginald(short stories)
• 1910Reginald in Russia(short stories)
• 1911The Chronicles of Clovis(short stories)
• 1912The Unbearable Bassington(novel)
• 1913When William Came(novel)
• 1914Beasts and Super-Beasts(short stories, including "The Lumber-Room" )
• 1914 "The East Wing" (short story, inLucas's Annual/Methuen's Annual)

Posthumous publications

• 1919The Toys of Peace(short stories)
• 1924The Square Egg and Other Sketches(short stories)
• 1924The Watched Pot(play, co-authored with Charles Maude)
• 1926–27The Works of Saki(8 volumes)
• 1930The Complete Short Stories of Saki
• 1933The Complete Novels and Plays of Saki(includingThe Westminster Alice)
• 1934The Miracle-Merchant(inOne-Act Plays for Stage and Study 8)
• 1950The Best of Saki(edited byGraham Greene)
• 1963The Bodley Head Saki
• 1976The Complete Saki
• 1976Short Stories(edited byJohn Letts)
• 1976The Best of Saki(selected and with an introduction by Tom Sharpe)
• 1981 Six previously uncollected stories inSaki,a biography byA. J. Langguth
• 1988Saki: The Complete Saki
• 1995The Secret Sin of Septimus Brope, and Other Stories
• 2006A Shot in the Dark(a compilation of 15 uncollected stories)
• 2010Improper Stories,Daunt Books(18 short stories)
• 2016Alice Wants to Know(limited edition reprintof the final instalment ofThe Westminster Alice,originally published inPicture Politics,but not included in the collected edition).
• 2023A Little Red Book of Wit & ShuddersBorderlands Press

Radio

The 5th broadcast ofOrson Welles' series forCBS Radio,The Mercury Theatre on the Air,from 8 August 1938, dramatizes three short stories rather than one long story. The second of the three stories is "The Open Window."

"The Open Window" is also adapted (by John Allen) in the 1962Golden RecordsreleaseAlfred Hitchcock Presents:Ghost Stories for Young People,a record album of six ghost stories for children.

Television

A dramatisation of "The Schartz-Metterklume Method" was an episode in the seriesAlfred Hitchcock Presentsin 1960.

Saki: The Improper Stories of H. H. Munro(a reference to the ending of "The Story Teller" ) was an eight-part series produced byPhilip MackieforGranada Televisionin 1962. Actors involved includedMark Burnsas Clovis,Fenella Fieldingas Mary Drakmanton,Heather Chasenas Agnes Huddle,Richard Vernonas the Major,Rosamund Greenwoodas Veronique andMartita Huntas Lady Bastable.

A dramatisation of "The Open Window" was an episode in the seriesTales of the Unexpectedin 1984. The same story was also adapted as "Ek Khula Hua Darwaza" byShyam Benegalas an episode in the 1986 Indian anthology television seriesKatha Sagar,which also included the episode "Saboon Ki Tikiya" an adaptation of Munro's "Dusk" by Benegal.

Who Killed Mrs De Ropp?,aBBCTV production in 2007, starringBen DanielsandGemma Jones,showcased three of Saki's short stories, "The Storyteller", "The Lumber Room" and "Sredni Vashtar".

Theatre

• The Playboy of the Week-End World(1977) byEmlyn Williams,adapts 16 of Saki's stories.
• Wolves at the Window(2008) by Toby Davies, adapts 12 of Saki's stories.
• Saki Shorts(2003) is a musical based on nine stories by Saki, with music, book and lyrics by John Gould and Dominic McChesney.
• Miracles at Short Notice(2011) by James Lark is another musical based on short stories by Saki.
• Life According to Saki(2016) byKatherine Rundellis a play inspired by the life and work of Saki.

Literary criticism and biography

• "Mappining London: Urban Participation in Sakian Satire"— by Lorene Mae Birden.Literary criticismfocusing on the role of London.
• "People Dined Against Each Other: Social Practices in Sakian Satire"— by Lorene Mae Birden. Literary criticism focusing on social mannerisms.
• The Satire of Sakiby George James Spears — A 127-page book encompassing a dissection of satire in Saki's works, with a bibliography and overview of all of Saki's works in relation to satire.
• Biography by Ethel M. Munro— A brief biography written by Saki's sister.
• Saki: A Life of Hector Hugh MunrobyA. J. Langguth— Includes six uncollected stories and various photographs.
• Pamela M. Pringle'Wolves by Jamrach': the Elusive Undercurrents in Saki's Short Stories(unpublished M.Litt. dissertation, University of Aberdeen, 1993).
• "An Asp Lurking in An Apple-Charlotte: Animal Violence in Saki'sThe Chronicles of Clovis"by Joseph S. Salemi – Literary criticism about the recurrence of animals inThe Chronicles of Clovis,suggesting that the animals represent the characters' primal instincts and true vicious mannerisms. Available in Student Research Center of EbscoHost Database.
• "The Unrest Cure According to Lawrence, Saki, and Lewis" by Christopher Lane,Modernism/modernity11.4 (2004): 769–96
• "Saki/Munro: Savage Propensities; or, The Jungle-Boy in the Drawing-room" by Christopher Lane, inThe Ruling Passion(Duke UniversityPress, 1995), pp. 212–28
• Stern, Simon (1994), "Saki's Attitude",GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies,1(3): 275–98,doi:10.1215/10642684-1-3-275,OCLC42671765
• Van Leer, David (1995),The queening of America: gay culture in straight society,Routledge, pp. 31–37,ISBN978-0-415-90336-3
• Sandie Byrne, Dr (2007),The unbearable Saki: the work of H.H. Munro,Oxford,ISBN978-0-19-922605-4,OCLC163312071
• Christopher Hitchens (June 2008),Where the Wild Things Are— Review ofThe Unbearable SakiinAtlantic Monthly
• Brian Gibson (2014),Reading Saki: The Fiction of H.H. Munro,McFarland,ISBN978-0-786-47949-8

External links

• The Annotated Saki
• Rediscovered Saki
• Saki at the Literature Network
• Audiobooks—The Complete Short Stories of SakiArchived31 December 2016 at theWayback Machine
• Works by SakiatProject Gutenberg
• Works by or about Sakiat theInternet Archive
• Works by SakiatLibriVox(public domain audiobooks)
• Sakiat theInternet Speculative Fiction Database
• Saki on Diffusion.org.uk– 36 Short stories from 'Beasts and Super Beasts'
• Six by Saki— six uncollected stories included as an appendix toA.J. Langguth's biography of Saki
• Saki storieson the 19 Nocturne Boulevard podcast, including Quail Seed, Tobermony, and The Phantom Luncheon
• The East WingSaki's 'rediscovered' short story
• Bibliography including lost stories rediscovered by Lora A. Sifurova
• seven stories and sketches rediscovered by Lora A. Sifurova listed here