Short Stories by Saki

By: H. H. Munro

Narrated by: Frederick Davidson, Nadia May

Length: 11 hrs and 28 mins

Publisher's summary

Hector Munro, writing under the pseudonym of Saki, is justly renowned for his urbane and witty short stories. His eccentric characters, humorous dialogue and engaging domestic situations all reveal a penetrating and sometimes disturbing insight into human nature. As a quixotic tour guide, Saki leads the reader from garden party to pig sty to political convention with the ease of one who is intimately familiar with the cares and foibles of the human condition, showing us this vista of life through the well tempered lens of his gentle, British irony. In this definitive collection of stories we can browse and sightsee at our leisure, cross borders of fresh insight, admire and enjoy each whimsical tale as we journey through the imaginative landscape of a truly artful writer.

(P)1997 by Blackstone Audiobooks

My kind of humor

Humor is a very personal thing. I remember once giving a collection of 'The Onion' articles to someone who later returned it to me with a puzzled expression. "That wasn't funny at all," she said. So, that said, if you don't think subversive, ironic, slightly sarcastic, Monty-Pythonesque, prim-people-stuck-in-very-unpleasant-situations, prim-people-who-don't-even-realize-they're-prigs, subtle, comedy of manners kind of situations funny, then you probably may not like Saki. Otherwise, this man is a genius.

Giggling on the subway

This is a great collection. Saki is always wonderful, and and these two readers perform perfectly. I would strongly consider audios by either of them. And if you are snickering to yourself on the train in a bad neighborhood, people will leave you alone.

Devilishly witty

A gross (more or less) of short stories ranging from very short to extremely short. Very few duds and almost all with a dry, slyly cynical, rapier-witted twist in the final sentence. Perfect for car listening and often laugh-out-loud funny. I often rewound to listen to the same story twice just to savor Saki's way with the Queen's English.

Frederick Davidson!

My favorite narrator really brought the stories to life. The stories were really good, I recommend to anyone who loves short stories.

Really fun satirical stories.

Most enjoyable stories and performance, combining to poke fun at the old British aristocracy.

Humor like P. D. Wodehouse

So glad ‘Audible’ suggested this title/ Author.
A good humorist is so rare — (much easier to write drama, perhaps)
Saki — interesting pen name!
His protagonists/ antagonists love thru universal themes. So although this was written 100+ years ago, his personalities and humor hits home.

Excellent stories, flawed implementation

It's quite frustrating to have a collection of short stories presented out of order and with no indication of which story titles are in which segment of the audiobook. It should have been very easy to give each story its own track.

Brilliant wit. Both readers do a good job, but their styles may not be to everyone's tastes. I recommend listening to a segment before purchasing.

A Poor Recording of a Brilliant Work

If you like insane humor delivered quietly and politely, then you'll love Saki. His twisted view of everyday life is as funny today as when it was written. Davidson and May give an excellent reading of these wonderful stories, it is unfortunate that they sound as if they were recorded on a Mr. Microphone in the trunk of a 1957 Buick on I-95 during rush hour. If you go for this, and you should, definitely get the best quality format your player can handle.

A treat

I’m familiar with Saki’s best-known stories “ Sredni Vashtar,” “The Music on the Hill” and “The Open Window,” but this collection was a huge treat and Nadia May and Frederick Davidson do a corking good job of rendering the voices of all the upper class twits, flâneurs, battleaxes and “angel” children that populate these stories.

Satirical brilliance

Saki is a favorite of mine, and I often turn to these familiar tales as I would to an old photograph album of times gone by.

There are a few dark, haunting tales such as "The Image of the Lost Soul" and "The Music on the Hill," but most of the stories here are light and funny. We are introduced to social-climbing hostesses, party-crashers, kleptomaniac relatives, aristocrats with amnesia, precocious children, reticent men in trying situations, scheming shopkeepers, and hapless travelers. All sparkle with originality and humor, and May and Davidson bring each one to life.

The author's prejudices against suffragettes, labor unions, and so forth, are evident. If this offends some, recall that these things are also a part of what makes Saki so very much a man of his time and social station. In short, there is no such thing as Edwardian "political correctness," however much we'd like to believe it was all "Downton Abbey."

Saki's death at the age of 45 while fighting in World War I cut short a brilliant writing career. I often wonder what he would have had to say about the dissolution of the society he knew so well...

The only thing I would change is that this collection is missing "The Interlopers," an eerie classic. Still, this is an extensive collection. I highly recommend it to all Saki fans as most other readings are quite short by comparison, and many are not performed half as well as those you'll hear here.