The Chronicles of Clovis [antikvár]

INTRODUCTION Hector Munro, whose pen-name Saki is thought to derive from the golden boy or catamite of that name in FitzGerald's Rubdiydt, remains a strangely mysterious figure. His sister, Ethel, destroyed all his papers after his death in the fighting of November 1916 near Beaumont-Hamel. Although the bare outlines of his life are well known, it has been remarked that his memory survives in practically none of the writings of his contemporaries. His cousin Major C. W. Mercer (better known as Dornford Yates, the novelist) wrote a brief memoir testifying to Munro's cheerfulness and charm, but Mercer was fifteen years younger and saw him only a few times. The chief primary source appears to be the brief memoir written by his sister which appeared with a posthumously published volume of Saki's work, The Square Egg, in 1924. Her evidence is thought to be tainted by a secretive-ness about her brother which bordered on obsession. Although Ethel laid down the guidelines for all subsequent speculation, reveaHng the existence of two draconian aunts in Devon, Munro's own writings about these aunts do not entirely support her picture of them and it seems possible that his attitude to women was determined even more by the presence of this difficult - if not slightly deranged - sister, who became his responsibility after their father died in 1907. All the evidence suggests that Munro was a person of charm, wit and social ease, never happier than when playing bridge at his beloved Cocoa Tree Club. There may be no significance in the fact that he seems to have chosen rather dim company to enchant. The bare facts, as I say, are well known. Hector Hugh Munro was born in Akyab, Burma, the third of three children in the family of an Inspector General of the Burma Police. Before he was two years old his mother had died and all three