Hector Hugh Munro | |
|---|---|
 Hector Hugh Munro by E. O. Hoppé (1913) | |
| Born | 18 December 1870 Akyab, Burma, British India |
| Died | 14 November 1916 (aged 45) Beaumont-Hamel, France |
| Pen name | Saki |
| Occupation | Author, playwright |
| Nationality | British |
| Military career | |
| Allegiance |  United Kingdom |
| Service |  British Army |
| Years of service | 1914–1916 |
| Rank | Lance Sergeant |
| Unit | 22nd Battalion, Royal Fusiliers |
| Battles / wars | First World War |
Hector Hugh Munro (18 December 1870 – 14 November 1916), popularly known by his pen name Saki and also frequently as H. H. Munro, was a British writer whose witty, mischievous and sometimes macabre stories satirize Edwardian society and culture. He is considered by English teachers and scholars a master of the short story and is often compared to O. Henry and Dorothy Parker. Influenced by Oscar Wilde, Lewis Carroll and Rudyard Kipling, Munro himself influenced A. A. Milne, Noël Coward and P. G. Wodehouse.[1]
Besides his short stories (which were first published in newspapers, as was customary at the time, and then collected into several volumes), Munro wrote a full-length play, The Watched Pot, in collaboration with Charles Maude; two one-act plays; a historical study, The Rise of the Russian Empire (the only book published under his own name); a short novel, The Unbearable Bassington; the episodic The Westminster Alice (a parliamentary parody of Alice in Wonderland); and When William Came, subtitled A Story of London Under the Hohenzollerns, a fantasy about a future German invasion and occupation of Britain.