The Chronicles of Clovis by Saki, Fiction, Classic, Literary

The charming, beloved master of short fiction known as "Saki" was born Hector Hugo Munro in 1870 in Akyab, Myanmar, which was then known as Burma. Hector was the youngest child of the Inspector-General of the Burmese police -- H.H. Munro was a child of the British Empire at its fullest glory. The children were soon sent to live with maiden aunts and their grandmother in Devon. The eccentric aunts and favorite childhood stories, including Robinson Crusoe, Alice in Wonderland, and Johnnykin and the Goblins, proved inspirational for later stories. As an adult, Saki served in the Burmese police and later, became a London political satirist and then journalist posted to Warsaw, Moscow and St. Petersburg. As with most of his generation, Saki enlisted in military service at the outbreak of the First World War. Stationed with the Royal Fusiliers, his battalion was sent to France in September, 1915.

From 1902 to 1908 Saki worked as a foreign correspondent for the Morning Post in the Balkans, Warsaw, Russia (where he witnessed Bloody Sunday) and Paris. He then gave up foreign reporting and settled in London. Many of his stories from this period feature Reginald and Clovis, young men-about-town who take mischievous delight in the discomfort or downfall of their conventional, pretentious elders.

The Chronicles of Clovis is Saki's third book of short fiction, published in 1911. Influenced by his travels in eastern Europe and Russia, most of the stories feature Clovis Sangrail, a rich young man with a wicked sense of humor. "Sredni Vashtar" is Conradin's pet ferret, the most important "god" in an isolated boy's imaginary world of power and vengeance that may, just possibly, be absolutely real. Saki's brilliant talent was cut short by a sniper's bullet on the Western Front in November, 1916.