The Complete Short Stories of Saki

Read Saki, shiver, then smile. In his mixture of the exotic with the wholly English, of brazen charm with unapologetic spite, he stands alone

Independent

Saki writes like an enemy. Society has bored him to the point of murder. Our laughter is only a note or two short of a scream of fear

V. S. Pritchett

Saki's stories are highly relevant to any society in which convention is confused with morality, and all societies confuse convention with morality, so he'll always be relevant

Will Self

Saki remains, from a distance of a hundred years, just about the sharpest, cruellest, funniest and most elegant short story writer in our language... Saki is like a perfect martini but with absinthe stirred in...heady, delicious and dangerous. Enjoy

Stephen Fry

These stories are cut-glass beauties, pitiless and hard-edged and constantly poking fun at the pretensions of the middle and upper classes... Crisp, funny and perfectly targeted

Naomi Alderman, Guardian

His stories...bear the hallmarks of Oscar Wilde and Henry James, are as funny as Wilde, Wodehouse and Waugh, possess plotting exquisite enough to bear significant elaboration but rarely last longer than three pages, and are brought off with a wonderfully light touch, while presenting a disturbingly chilling portrait of humankind

Guardian

My favourite writer of all time is the satirical Edwardian writer HH Munro, who was also known as Saki. He had a very black sense of humour and some of his short stories are so incredibly dark and irreverent that you just can’t help but laugh

Clarissa Dickson Wright, Daily Express

His tales are loaded with death and destruction, as well as a heavy dose of flippancy and cynicism. They are peppered with clever, cutting epigrams and usually end with a grim twist. And there are animals - lots of them

Guardian

Saki is among those few writers, inspirational when read at an early age, who definitely retain their magic when revisited decades later

Christopher Hitchens