A Quartet of Saki: Mrs Packletide's Tiger, Reginald on Besetting Sins, Sredni Vashtar, The Recessional
Saki
Jun 2009 · Matrix · Narrated by Helen Elizabeth G
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Audiobook
30 min
Unabridged
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Eligible
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About this audiobook
Saki was the pen name of Hector Hugh Munro (December 18, 1870 - November 13, 1916), a British writer, whose witty and sometimes macabre stories satirized Edwardian society and culture. He is considered a master of the short story and is often compared to O. Henry and Dorothy Parker. His tales feature delicately drawn characters and finely judged narratives.
This audiobook collects together four of his finest short stories:
"Mrs Packletide's Tiger" - in this story, Saki tackles the Victorian-Edwardian fascination with wild-game hunting, as well as the timeless drive to keep up with the Joneses. In this case Mrs Packletide has been outshone by her rival Mrs Bimberton and decides to get ahead by hunting a tiger...
"Reginald on Besetting Sins" - Reginald tells the unfortunate story of a woman who found problems with being completely truthful at all times.
"Sredni Vashtar" - The story of a young, sickly child, Conradin. When his guardian Mrs. De Ropp finds his Houdan hen, it is sold and taken away, but she is unaware of the pet polecat-ferret, called "Sredni Vashtar," which Conradin worships as a god. Just before tea, Mrs. De Ropp enters the shed in which the ferret lies in his hutch. As the time slips by without a stirring from the shed, Conradin begins to pray to Sredni Vashtar — and receives his darkest wish.
"The Recessional" - Clovis discusses with Bertie the progress of his 'recessional'; a poem he was challenged to write and get published by Loona Bimberton. He hopes with the assistance of Mrs Packletide to win the bet...
This audiobook collects together four of his finest short stories:
"Mrs Packletide's Tiger" - in this story, Saki tackles the Victorian-Edwardian fascination with wild-game hunting, as well as the timeless drive to keep up with the Joneses. In this case Mrs Packletide has been outshone by her rival Mrs Bimberton and decides to get ahead by hunting a tiger...
"Reginald on Besetting Sins" - Reginald tells the unfortunate story of a woman who found problems with being completely truthful at all times.
"Sredni Vashtar" - The story of a young, sickly child, Conradin. When his guardian Mrs. De Ropp finds his Houdan hen, it is sold and taken away, but she is unaware of the pet polecat-ferret, called "Sredni Vashtar," which Conradin worships as a god. Just before tea, Mrs. De Ropp enters the shed in which the ferret lies in his hutch. As the time slips by without a stirring from the shed, Conradin begins to pray to Sredni Vashtar — and receives his darkest wish.
"The Recessional" - Clovis discusses with Bertie the progress of his 'recessional'; a poem he was challenged to write and get published by Loona Bimberton. He hopes with the assistance of Mrs Packletide to win the bet...
About the author
H. H. Munro, better known as "Saki," was born in Burma, the son of an inspector-general for the Burmese police. Sent to England to be educated at the Bedford Grammar School, he returned to Burma in 1893 and joined the police force there. In 1896, he returned again to England and began writing first for The Westminster Gazette and then as a foreign correspondent for The Morning Post. Best known for his wry and amusing stories, Saki depicts a world of drawing rooms, garden parties, and exclusive club rooms. His short stories at their best are extraordinarily compact and cameolike, wicked and witty, with a careless cruelty and a powerful vein of supernatural fantasy. They deal, in general, with the same group of upper-class Britishers, whose frivolous lives are sometimes complicated by animals---the talking cat who reveals their treacheries in love, the pet ferret who is evil incarnate. The nom de plume "Saki" was borrowed from the cupbearer in Omar Khayyam's (see Vol. 2) The Rubaiyat. Munro used it for political sketches contributed to the Westminster Gazette as early as 1896, later collected as Alice in Westminster. The stories and novels were published between that time and the outbreak of World War I, when he enlisted as a private, scorning a commission. He died of wounds from a sniper's bullet while in a shell hole near Beaumont-Hamel. One of his characters summed up Saki's stories as those that "are true enough to be interesting and not true enough to be tiresome."
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