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 Scottish-born
writer whose stories satirize the Edwardian social scene, often
in a macabre and cruel fashion. Munro's columns and short stories
were published under the pen name 'Saki', who was the cupbearer
in The Rabaoyat of Omar Khayyam, an ancient Persian poem.
Saki's stories were full of witty epithets - such as "The cook
was a good cook, as cooks go; and as cooks go she went." - and
included coded references to homosexuality.
"A little inaccuracy sometimes saves tons of explanations."
(from The Square Egg, 1924)
Hector Hugh Munro was born in Akyab, Burma (now Myamar) the son
of Charles Augustus Munro, an inspector-general for the Burma police.
His mother, the former Mary Frances Mercer, died in 1872 - she was
killed by a runaway cow in an English country lane. Munro was brought
up in England with his brother and sister by a pair of strict aunts
who frequently used the birch and the whip. Munro was educated at
Pencarwick School in Exmoth and the Bedford Grammar School. From
1887 he travelled in France, Germany and Switzerland with his family.
In 1891 his father settled in Devon where he worked as a teacher.
In 1893 Munro joined the Burma police. He returned to England three
years later and started his career as a journalist, writing for
Westminster Gazette.
In 1900 Munro's first book appeared, THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE,
a historical study modelled upon Gibbon's famous The Decline
and Fall of the Roman Empire. The book was received with hostile
criticism in America. It was followed in 1902 by a collection of
short stories, NOT-SO-STORIES. From 1902 to 1908 Munro worked as
a foreign correspondent for The Morning Post in the Balkans,
Russia and Paris, finally settling in London. In 1914 his novel
WHEN WILLIAM CAME, was published. In it he portrays what might occur
if the German emperor conquered England.
"Only the old and the clergy of Established churches know
how to be flippant gracefully,'' commented Reginald; "which reminds
me that in the Anglican Church in a certain foreign capital, which
shall be nameless, I was present the other day when one of the
junior chaplains was preaching in aid of distressed something's
or other, and he brought a really eloquent passage to a close
with the remark, 'The tears of the afflicted, to what shall I
liken them---to diamonds?' The other junior chaplain, who had
been dozing out of professional jealousy, awoke with a start and
asked hurriedly, 'Shall I play to diamonds, partner?'
(from Reginald in Russia, 1910)
 After
the outbreak of World War I, although officially over age, Munro
volunteered in the army as an ordinary soldier. A snipers bullet
killed him on November 14, 1916 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. Ethel also never married.
Among Saki's most frequently anthologised short stories is 'Tobermory,'
in which a cat, who has seen too much scandal through country house
windows, learns to talk and starts to repeat the guests' vicious
comments about each other. 'The Open Window' was a tale-within-a-tale.
In 'Sredni Vashtar' Saki used his Aunt Augusta as a model for a
guardian. In 'Laura' the title character is reincarnated as a mean
otter after her death.
Sredni Vashtar went forth,
His thoughts were red thoughts and his teeth
white were.
His enemies called to peace, but he brought
them death.
Sredni Vashtar the Beautiful.
 Saki
was openly misogynistic, an anti-Semite, and a reactionary, who
also parodied himself. His stories, that 'are true enough to be
interesting and not true enough to be tiresome', were considered
ideal reading for schoolboys, and thus enjoyed by the heirs of the
crumbling empire, whose way of life he attacked at every turn. Reginald
and Clovis, two of his most famous heroes, appeared in a series
of stories in which the nihilists take revenge on the conventional
world, without saving anything. At one point Reginald states: "People
may say what they like about the decay of Christianity; the religious
system that produced green Chartreuse can never really die." In
the short story 'Sredni Vashtar' from The Chronicles of Clovis
(1911) an ill child makes a god of his illicit pet ferret, who eventually
savages to death his oppressive guardian.
"Saki writes like an enemy. Society has bored him to the point
of murder. Our laughter is only a note or two short of a scream
of fear."
(by V.S. Pritchett)
For further reading: World Authors 1900-1950, vol. 4,
ed. by Martin Seymour-Smith and Andrew C. Kimmens (1996); The
Penguin Encyclopaedia of Horror and the Supernatural, ed. by Jack
Sullivan (1986); Saki: A Life of Hector Hugh Munro by A.J. Langguth
(1981); Saki by G.H. Gillen (1969); The Satire of Saki by by G.J.
Spears (1963)
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