Hector Hugh Munro, who endeared himself to the literary world with his near-brutal brevity and macabre humor, was born in 1870 in Burma. Before he took the pseudonym “Saki,” Munro briefly served the Burma police. Upon quitting it due to ill health, he moved to London to become a journalist. He died in 1916.

Through his immortal short stories and other writings, Saki has created some of the most loved stereotypes that are almost caricaturesque in their droll exaggeration. Aunts are the unfailing tyrants in their unreasonable cruelty or downright imbecility. Families eat porridge, believe in the weather forecast and have no sense of humor. No one falls in love and if love does happen, it's placid love between placidly lovable couples. “Isms” are grotesque jokes with warped punch-lines; patriotism ends up in Parisian frocks worn with an English accent, and socialism is what can get one stuck in the Turkish bath or with half-done coiffeur.