December 18

This Day in History


Dec 18, 1870:

Short story writer H.H. Munro is born in Burma

On this day, H.H. Munro, better known as short story writer Saki, is born in Burma.

The son of a Burma police officer, Munro was sent to live with his tyrannical aunts in England when he was 2. When he grew up, he joined the Burma police department but left because of ill health. He turned to journalism, writing political satires. He also wrote a serious history, The Rise of the Russian Empire (1900).

Munro became foreign correspondent for a London newspaper and lived in several countries. Meanwhile, he continued writing stories full of suspense and surprise endings, using his pen name, Saki. His first book of stories, Reginald (1904), was a success. Munro settled down in London in 1908 and continued to publish story collections, including Reginald in Russia (1910), The Chronicles of Clovis (1911), and Beasts and Super-Beasts (1914). In 1912, he published a novel, The Unbearable Bassington. Munro was killed in France during action in World War I.


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