Editing Saki (section)

==Life==
[[File:Hector Hugh Munro.jpg|thumb|right|Photo from ''The War Illustrated'', 31 July 1915]]

=== Early life ===
Hector Hugh Munro was born in [[Sittwe|Akyab (now Sittwe)]], [[British Burma]], which was then part of [[British India]]. Saki was the son of Charles Augustus Munro, an [[Inspector-general of police|Inspector General]] for the [[Indian Imperial Police]], and his wife, Mary Frances Mercer (1843–1872), the daughter of [[Rear admiral (Royal Navy)|Rear Admiral]] Samuel Mercer. Her nephew Cecil William Mercer became a novelist under the name [[Dornford Yates]].

In 1872, on a home visit to England, Mary Munro was charged by a cow, and the shock caused her to miscarry. She never recovered and soon died.<ref>{{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20131017060140/http://www.ajlangguth.com/_saki__a_life_of_hector_hugh_munro__with_six_short_stories_never_before_collecte_11053.htm "Saki: A Life of Hector Hugh Munro, with six short stories never before collected"]}} (Hamish Hamilton, London, 1981), extract at AJLangguth.com</ref>

After his wife's death Charles Munro sent his three children, Ethel Mary (born April 1868), Charles Arthur (born July 1869) and two-year-old Hector, home to England. The children were sent to Broadgate Villa, in [[Pilton, Devon|Pilton]] near [[Barnstaple]], North Devon, to be raised by their grandmother and paternal maiden aunts, Charlotte and Augusta, in a strict and puritanical household. It is said that his aunts were most likely models for some of his characters, notably the aunt in "The Lumber Room" and the guardian in "Sredni Vashtar": Munro's sister Ethel said that the aunt in "The Lumber Room" was an almost perfect portrait of Aunt Augusta. Munro and his siblings led slightly insular lives during their early years and were educated by governesses. At the age of 12 the young Hector Munro was educated at Pencarwick School in [[Exmouth, Devon|Exmouth]] and then as a boarder at [[Bedford School]].

In 1887, after his retirement, his father returned from Burma and embarked upon a series of European travels with Hector and his siblings.

Hector followed his father in 1893 into the Indian Imperial Police and was posted to Burma, but successive bouts of fever caused his return home after only fifteen months.

===Writing career===

In 1896 he decided to move to London to make a living as a writer.

Munro started his writing career as a journalist for newspapers such as ''[[The Westminster Gazette]]'', the ''[[Daily Express]]'', ''[[The Morning Post]]'', and magazines such as the ''[[Bystander (magazine)|Bystander]]'' and ''Outlook''. His first book, ''The Rise of the Russian Empire'', a historical study modelled upon [[Edward Gibbon]]'s ''[[The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire]]'', appeared in 1900, under his real name, but proved to be something of a false start.

While writing ''The Rise of the Russian Empire'', he made his first foray into short story writing and published a piece called "Dogged" in ''St Paul's'' on February 18, 1899. (Munro's sketch "The Achievement of the Cat" appeared the day before in ''The Westminster Budget''.<ref>{{cite web |title=The Westminster Budget from London . . . Page 17 |url=https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/34442816/ |website=newspapers.com |date=17 February 1899 |publisher=Ancestry |access-date=9 July 2022}}</ref>) He then moved into the world of political satire in 1900 with a collaboration with [[Francis Carruthers Gould]] entitled "Alice in Westminster". Gould produced the sketches, and Munro wrote the text accompanying them, using the pen name "Saki" for the first time. The series lampooned political figures of the day (''Alice in Downing Street'' begins with the memorable line, "'Have you ever seen an Ineptitude?'" – referring to a zoomorphised [[Arthur Balfour]]<ref>{{Cite book |last=Munro |first=Hector H. ("Saki") |year=1902 |title=The Westminster Alice |title-link=The Westminster Alice |others=Illustrations: F. Carruthers Gould |location=London |publisher=Westminster Gazette |oclc=562982174}}</ref>), and was published in the Liberal ''Westminster Gazette''.

In 1902 he moved to ''The Morning Post'', described as one of the "organs of intransigence" by [[Stephen Koss]],<ref>{{Cite book |last=Koss |first=Stephen |year=1984 |title=The Rise and Fall of the Political Press in Britain |volume=Two: ''The Twentieth Century'' |location=London |publisher=Hamish Hamilton |page=80}}</ref> to work as a foreign correspondent, first in the Balkans, and then in Russia, where he was witness to the [[1905 Russian Revolution|1905 revolution]] in St. Petersburg. He then went on to Paris, before returning to London in 1908, where "the agreeable life of a man of letters with a brilliant reputation awaited him".<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Munro |first1=H. H. ("Saki") |last2=Reynolds |first2=Rothay |year=1919 |chapter=A Memoir of H. H. Munro |title=The Toys of Peace |location=London |publisher=John Lane Co. |pages=xiv}}</ref> In the intervening period ''Reginald'' had been published in 1904, the stories having first appeared in ''The Westminster Gazette'', and all this time he was writing sketches for ''The Morning Post'', the ''Bystander'' and ''The Westminster Gazette''. He kept a place in Mortimer Street, wrote, played bridge at the Cocoa Tree Club, and lived simply. ''Reginald in Russia'' appeared in 1910, ''[[The Chronicles of Clovis]]'' was published in 1911, and ''Beasts and Super-Beasts'' in 1914, along with other short stories that appeared in newspapers not published in collections in his lifetime.

He also produced two novels, ''The Unbearable Bassington'' (1912) and ''When William Came'' (1913).

===Death===
At the start of the [[First World War]] Munro was 43 and officially over-age to enlist, but he refused a commission and joined the [[King Edward's Horse|2nd King Edward's Horse]] as an ordinary [[Trooper (rank)|trooper]]. He later transferred to the [[22nd (Service) Battalion, Royal Fusiliers (Kensington)]], in which he was promoted to [[lance sergeant]]. More than once he returned to the battlefield when officially too sick or injured. In November 1916 he was sheltering in a shell crater near [[Beaumont-Hamel]], France, during the [[Battle of the Ancre]], when he was killed by a German [[sniper]]. According to several sources, his [[last words]] were "Put that bloody cigarette out!"<ref>"The Square Egg", p. 102</ref>

===Legacy===
Munro has no known grave. He is commemorated on Pier and Face 8C 9A and 16A of the [[Thiepval Memorial]].<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty/1546551/MUNRO,%20HECTOR%20HUGH |title=CWGC – Casualty Details |last=Reading Room Manchester |website=cwgc.org}}</ref>

In 2003 [[English Heritage]] marked Munro's flat at 97 [[Mortimer Street]], in [[Fitzrovia]] with a [[blue plaque]].<ref name="EngHet">{{Cite web |url=http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/blue-plaques/munro-hector-hugh-1870-1916-a.k.a.-saki |title=MUNRO, HECTOR HUGH (1870–1916) a.k.a. Saki |publisher=English Heritage |access-date=29 April 2015}}</ref>

After his death, his sister Ethel [[Book burning|destroyed]] most of his papers and wrote her own account of their childhood, which appeared at the beginning of ''The Square Egg and Other Sketches'' (1924). [[Rothay Reynolds]], a close friend, wrote a relatively lengthy memoir in ''The Toys of Peace'' (1919), but aside from this, the only other biographies of Munro are ''Saki: A Life of Hector Hugh Munro'' (1982) by [[A. J. Langguth]], and ''The Unbearable Saki'' (2007) by Sandie Byrne. All later biographies have had to draw heavily upon Ethel's account of her brother's life.

In late 2020 two Saki stories, "The Optimist" (1912) and "Mrs. Pendercoet's Lost Identity" (1911), which had never been republished, collected, or noted in any academic publication on Saki, were rediscovered; they are now available online.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Gibson |first1=Brian |title=Rediscovered Saki |url=https://rediscoveredsaki.net |website=Rediscovered Saki |access-date=3 January 2021}}</ref>

In 2021, Lora Sifurova, looking through the ''Morning Post'' and other London periodicals in Russian archives, rediscovered seven sketches and stories attributed to Munro or Saki.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Sifurova |first1=Lora |title=Lora A. Sifurova (Academia.edu) |url=https://independent.academia.edu/ЛораСифурова |website=Academia.edu |publisher=Academia |access-date=20 November 2021}}</ref>

In 2023, Bruce Gaston rediscovered a Clovis sketch, "The Romance of Business", published as part of an advertisement for Selfridge's in a 1914 issue of the [[The_Daily_News_(UK)|''Daily News and Leader'']].<ref>{{cite web |last1=Gaston |first1=Bruce |title='The Romance of Business': a newly discovered Clovis story |url=https://www.annotated-saki.info/the-romance-of-business-a-newly-rediscovered-clovis-story/ |website=The Annotated Saki |publisher=WordPress |access-date=4 May 2022}}</ref>

===Sexuality===
{{see also|LGBT rights in the United Kingdom}}
Munro was [[homosexuality|homosexual]] at a time when in Britain sexual activity between men was a crime. The [[Cleveland Street scandal]] (1889), followed by [[Oscar Wilde#Imprisonment|the downfall of Oscar Wilde]] (1895), meant "that side of [Munro's] life had to be secret".<ref name="ODNB">{{cite ODNB|url=http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/35149|title=Munro, Hector Hugh [Saki] (1870–1916)|last=Hibberd|first=Dominic|author-link=Dominic Hibberd|year=2004|access-date=9 May 2015|doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/35149}}</ref>