The Complete Short Stories of Saki
by Hector Hugh Munro
This is a bit of an odd addition, since it’s not science fiction, fantasy, crime or any of the other genres we normally sell. It’s here for two reasons. First, I really like it and it’s my store. Secondly it’s a early part of a writing tradition that has as its modern expression authors like Terry Pratchett, Tom Holt, Guy Adams and Jasper Fforde. Saki was the pseudonym of British author Hector Hugh Munro. His short writing career spanned just fifteen years, with his first publication in 1899 and his last in 1914, two years before his death in France at the hands of a German sniper during World War One. What he left readers with was a collection of short fiction that critiqued and commented on British life and institutions with rapier sharp and acerbic wit.
So, why do I think it’s so important to share this with you? Because behind The Patrician and Granny Weatherwax and Thursday Next and even Jeeves and Wooster are Saki‘s characters Reginald and Clovis. These two, each with their own story cycles are young men who move somewhat randomly through the society of their peers and some would argue betters. Often without means, they are rarely without opinions and will cut to the brutal quick of any situation, generally without any concern for collateral damage. A comment on the cut of a dress “All her gowns are constructed in Paris, but she wears them with a distinctly English accent” is enough to get Reginald in trouble with somebody, but he always seems to turn up at parties nonetheless.
These stories are dazzling displays of wit and language, and while they were written to satirise a long vanished collection of people and behaviours, the raw humour and perfectly phrased observations are the very things we love in British humour still. This is the funny and clever stuff from all of the genre humour books we’re mad for, it just doesn’t have the genre bits.