Saki

Saki (December 18, 1870 - November 14, 1916) was the pen name of British author Hector Hugh Munro, whose witty and outrageous stories satirised the Edwardian social scene in macabre and cruel ways.

Biography

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 Myanmar, was still part of the British Empire. His mother, the former Mary Frances Mercer, died in 1872, killed by a runaway cow. (This event may presage the frightening views of animals that mark many of his stories.) He was brought up in England with his brother and sister by his grandmother and aunts in a straitlaced household, the humour of 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 ferret without his guardian's knowledge and the animal ends up killing her, apparently to the delight of the boy.

Related Topics:
Akyab - Burma - Myanmar - British Empire - England

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

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 and a clear reference to Kipling's Just-So Stories.

Related Topics:
The Rise of the Russian Empire - The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Kipling - Just-So 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 returned to the battlefield more than once when officially still too sick or injured to fight. He was killed by a sniper in France, near Beaumont-Hamel, in 1916. 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.

Related Topics:
World War I - Army - Beaumont-Hamel - 1916

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Much of Saki's work was published posthumously.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Controversy

Some believe that Munro made misogynist and anti-Semitic comments, although compared with his contemporaries in Edwardian England, he appears progressive for his time.

Related Topics:
Misogynist - Anti-Semitic - Edwardian

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Rather than the blanket term 'misogyny', it might be more correct to say that Munro disapproved of childless women, probably from his own negative experience with them. A sickly motherless child, Munro was raised by straitlaced female relatives who, he believed, went beyond strictness into cruel and spiteful behaviour. (Mrs. De Roop, the guardian cousin in "Sredni Vashtar", is said to be a representation of his view of his own aunt. See also the quotation "Eleanor hated boys" from "Arlington Stringham" below.) He was also confronted by the more fatuous end of female interaction, as described in "The Sex that Does Not Shop". As a reputed homosexual, he attracted many female friends but never married.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Despite his lampooning of suffragettes and aunts, his stories feature sympathetic portrayals of admirably cool and self-possessed schoolgirls. One of his closest childhood friends was his sister, and they remained close until his death.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~