The Short Stories of Saki

Saki's short stories turn respectable habits and confident assumptions into occasions for sharp, sometimes unsettling comedy.

Read the book Contents

Length: 142 stories
Reading time: About 15 hr 47 min
Words: 225,323

About the book

This collection ranges from a cathedral's carved figures to the apparently safe surroundings of a church bazaar. Saki can begin with a fable or a portrait of social respectability, then expose the instability inside it. An assured narrative voice makes the approach especially dry.

The stories reward attention to small signals of vanity, timidity and self-interest. Their brevity gives an ordinary remark room to change the direction of a scene. Rather than requiring a continuous plot, the collection offers separate encounters with people whose tidy understanding of the world may prove inadequate.

On these lists

Short stories Comic classics

This edition

Text from Standard Ebooks, who proofread and typeset it and dedicate their edition to the public domain. Saki died more than 70 years ago, so the work is out of copyright in the UK.