Collected Short Stories of Saki (Wordsworth Classics) [Paperback]

Hugh Munroe Munro (Author)

Book Description

Series: Wordsworth Classics | Publication Date: December 5, 1999

'All decent people live beyond their incomes nowadays, and those who aren't respectable live beyond other peoples' Saki (H.H. Munro) stands alongside Anton Chekhov and O Henry as a master of the short story. His extraordinary stories are a mixture of humorous satire, irony and the macabre, in which the stupidities and hypocrisy of conventional society are viciously pilloried. This collection includes Sredni Vastor and The Unrest Cure. 'We all know that Prime Ministers are wedded to the truth, but like other married couples they sometimes live apart'

Product Details

• Paperback: 512 pages
• Publisher: Wordsworth Editions Ltd; First Thus edition (December 5, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1853260711
• ISBN-13: 978-1853260711
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 4.9 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #154,755 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #56 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Literature & Fiction > Short Stories > Anthologies

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hopelessly modern wit, hopelessly feudal outlooks, April 27, 2007

By 

James McPherson "purveyor of piscine ephemera" (future wetlands, Louisiana) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Collected Short Stories of Saki (Wordsworth Classics) (Paperback)

What else can be said about Saki? A man caught between the death of the old way and the birthpangs of modernity - in both politics and literature - has much to satire. Saki's humor is near-pathological, glorifying the absurd and savaging the serious. Any (and all) collections of his too-brief work are to be appreciated, cherished, and most importantly, shared. If one can read "The Unrest-Cure" and not laugh out loud I fear for the future of humanity!

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars AN INSIDIOUS ADDICTION, November 25, 2009

By 

Klingsor Tristan (Suffolk) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Collected Short Stories of Saki (Wordsworth Classics) (Paperback)

The stories of H.H.Munro - better known by his pen-name of Saki - have scarcely been out of print since they were first published a hundred years ago. Yet it often seems that their particular delights are reserved for the private pleasures of his coterie of admirers.

It has to be admitted that a taste for Saki is something of an addiction. And, like all addictions, once acquired it is hard to give up. In the years since his wastefully tragic early death in the trenches of World War I at the hands of a German sniper, fellow addicts have included Graham Greene, Noel Coward and Tom Sharpe. All of us take a slightly wicked satisfaction from his biting wit and the subversive way in which he undermines the staid Edwardian society he purports to merely observe.

But, to a much greater extent than his near-contemporaries, Wilde and Kipling, there is something dark and menacing at the heart of Saki's writing. Behind the refined tinkle of teacups on an Edwardian lawn can be heard the distant howling of a wolf. Hidden among the shrubbery in a carefully manicured garden lurk all kinds of Beasts and Superbeasts, ready to wreak Nature's revenge on an uncaring mankind with its arrogant belief in materialism, progress and the innate respectability of middle-class values. Where Kipling's Jungle Book menagerie tends to simple analogies of human types, Saki's animals can rise up with the full power of Pan himself.

This is not to ignore Saki's ability to turn an aphorism with all the facility and wit of the divine Oscar at his best. Nor does it forget his ability to prick the inflated egos of louche young men with too much time and money on their hands or deliciously dotty aunts and duchesses with their minds firmly fixed on Empire and their Imperial responsibilities.

It would be easy to argue that Munro foresaw the imminent collapse of the society into the cataclysm of the Great War. With his experience as a political journalist in the Balkans and Eastern Europe, he was probably more aware than most of the storm that was about to break over Europe.

But essentially he was an observer of his fellow man. And it is for the humour of his observations, for the dazzling twists and turns his tales take and for the fact that he makes us laugh inordinately that he is to be treasured and why we addicts are prepared to share our secret vice with those who have not yet acquired the habit.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Wicked Sense of the Absurd, September 15, 2009

By 

Paula M. Buerger "Book Lady" (Waltham, MA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Collected Short Stories of Saki (Wordsworth Classics) (Paperback)

Saki was one of the funniest, wickedest, evilest senses of humor to ever pick up a pen! While the stories sometimes seem dated [they were written before World War I], which may make them a little strange to someone who is unfamiliar with the era, the stories are completely worth it! I highly recommend Shock Tactics, The Unrest Cure, Gabriel Ernest, and Sredni Vastar. Saki was sharper than a knife and had a great grasp not only of the absurd but the eerie. What a pity he died in the trenches!