Hector Hugh Munro (Saki) expanded the possibilities of the short story by infusing it with the interests and techniques of the comedy of manners. In so doing, Munro produced satiric narratives remembered for their epigrammatic wit, narrative economy, and logically developed surprise endings. He transmitted the traditions of Oscar Wilde and his predecessors to P. G. Wodehouse, Evelyn Waugh, and Noel Coward, while he earned the interest of many other writers such as Graham Greene, G. K. Chesterton, and A. A. Milne.

Born 18 December 1870 in Akyab, Burma, to Charles Augustus and Mary Frances Munro, the boy was taken to England with his brother and sister in 1873, after their mother's death, to be raised by two aunts at Pilton, in North Devon. The children accompanied their father on many extended visits to the Continent when he retired from the army in 1888, and Munro followed his father's example by going...