penguin popular classics the best of saki complete and unaridged 　　the short stories of saki give brief but dazzling glingpses into the lives of the edwardian rich:a cass that virtually disappeard with the advent of the fist world war. 　　ithe splendour of edwardian drawing rooms we encounter the in the splendour of divinely dressed reginald ,the acid-tongued opinonated and a host of other wealthy and well-to-do sophiticate englishmen and women from duchesses and dowagers to great-aunts,nanies and a talking cat.with delicious malice,saki aunts,portrays the follies,eloquence,tradition and foibles of his own:wickedly amusing and as sharp and sparkling as cut glass. 　　作者简介： 　　saki（1897-1916）.celebrated fot his entertaining style of prose and acute social satire,saki is best remembered fot his shrt stories,which combine wit with malice and the eccentric with themundane. 　　‘saki’is the name of the cup-bearer in the final stanza of the rubayat of omar khayyam and the pen-name chosen by one hector hugh munro.hector was born at akyab in burma in 1870,where his father was a senior official with the burma police.his mother died when he was still very yound and he was sent with his brother and was still very young and he was xent with his brother and sister to live with two maiden aunts at pilton near barnstaple in devon.the aunts,charlotte and augusta,showed little love or affection for the children and ruled the house with a rod of iron. 　　his first short stories appeared in the westminster gazette and were later collected in one volume entitled reginald（1904）.his other collections are reginald is russia（1910）the twenty-eight stories found in the chromicles of clovis （1911）and super-beasts（1914）.his novel the unbearable bassing was published in 1912,follwed by german occupation.when war did break out in 1914 sakienlisted as a private,refusing to take the commission he was offered.he served as a sergeant with the royal fusiliers but waw shot in the head while in a shallow were published posthumoly as the toys of peace（1923）and the square egg and other sketches（1924）.