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SAKI (SAH-kee)

Pen name of British author H. H. Munro

Common clues: H.H. Munro; Munro's pen name; “The Square Egg” author; “Reginald” writer; Literary pseudonym

Crossword puzzle frequency: 2 times a year

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A little inaccuracy sometimes saves tons of explanations.

Saki

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




Saki is considered a master of the short story, often compared to O. Henry and Dorothy Parker. His story The Open Window may be his most famous, with a closing line ("Romance at short notice was her speciality") that has entered the lexicon of many writers.

The name Saki is generally believed to have been chosen from the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyam, a poem to which he refers in "Reginald on Christmas Presents". However, an alternative school of thought holds that the author's pseudonym originates with the South American monkey of the same name. "A small, long-tailed monkey from the Western Hemisphere", its nature a balance of gentle shyness with a vicious temper, features as a central character in "The Remoulding of Groby Lington".

Critics note that Munro made misogynist and anti-Semitic comments. Some of the less than feminist comments that he made may be due, in part, to his difficulty with women throughout his life; he never married. He was often confronted by the more fatuous end of female interaction (as can be seen in one short story about women buying stationery) and, as a homosexual, attracted many as friends. 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 disappearance on the battlefield.

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. He was brought up in England with his brother and sister by his grandmother and aunts in a straitlaced household, the humour in 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 weasel ends up killing the woman who looks after him, apparently to the delight of the boy.

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 modeled 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.

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 was killed by a sniper 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.

Saki's work is in the public domain, and some of it can be found on the Web. Much of it was published posthumously.



This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Saki".


SAKI (129) 15 We- >1 06 H.H. Munro's pen name

12 Mo+ >1 07 H.H. Munro

8 Tu >1 06 Munro's pen name

6 Mo+ >1 02 Munro's pseudonym

5 Th+ >1 06 "The Square Egg" author

5 Tu+ >1 05 H.H. Munro's pseudonym

4 Th- >1 96 "Reginald" writer

4 Fr- >1 02 "The Unbearable Bassington" author

4 Tu+ >1 06 H. H. Munro's pen name

4 Tu >1 04 H. H. Munro's pseudonym

4 Tu >1 07 Pseudonym of H. H. Munro

3 Fr- >1 98 "Reginald" author

3 Th- NYT 01 "The Open Window" writer

3 Fr+ LAT 05 "The Westminster Alice" author

3 Fr NYT 07 "Tobermory" writer

3 Tu LAT 05 Noted short story pen name

2 Th WSJ 08 "The Open Window" author

2 We >1 98 H. H. Munro, pseudonymically

2 We >1 03 H.H. Munro's nom de plume

2 We NYT 09 Literary pen name ELIA

2 Th- >1 99 Literary pseudonym ELIA

09 Munro pseudonym

2 Th- >1 06 Pen name of H.H. Munro

1 Th WSJ 01 "Beasts and Super-Beasts" author

1 Th WSJ 03 "Reginald in Russia" writer