Selected Stories

A beautifully jacketed hardcover selection of 53 darkly witty, whimsical, and macabre short stories by an acknowledged master of the form.

Saki’s dazzling tales manage the remarkable feat of being anarchic and urbane at the same time. Studded with Wildean epigrams and featuring well-contrived plots and surprise endings, his stories gleefully skewer the pompous hypocrisies of upper class Edwardian society. But they go beyond mere satire, raising dark humor to extremes of entertaining outrageousness that have rarely since been matched. Saki’s elegantly mischievous young heroes sow chaos in their wake without breaking a sweat, and are occasionally joined by werewolves, tigers, eavesdropping house pets, and casually murderous children. This selection includes such famous stories as “Tobermory,” “The Open Window,” “Sredni Vashtar,” “Mrs. Packletide’s Tiger,” “The Schartz-Metterklume Method,” and many more.

About the author

Saki is the pen name of H. H. Munro, born in 1870 in Burma and educated in England. He began his writing career as a journalist and foreign correspondent but later turned to writing fiction—predominantly short stories for which he is best remembered—as well as one history book. He was 43 when World War I started. Although he was beyond the age of conscription, and despite being offered an officer’s commission, Saki joined the army as an ordinary trooper. He was killed in 1916 in France by a German sniper.