Reading Saki: The Fiction of H.H. Munro

by Brian Gibson

Overview

Here is a thorough critical re-examination of the Edwardian master of the darkly humorous short story, Saki (the pen name of Hector Hugh Munro, 1870-1916). Saki the satirist constantly rebelled against but depended upon the world of H.H. Munro, the gentleman bachelor. In reassessing the importance of post-Wilde sexuality, anti-suffragist feelings, and attitudes towards Jews and Slavs in Saki's oeuvre, it becomes clear that the fiction of Saki reflects a fervid imperial masculinity in Britain as World War I approached. The tension between rebellious sexual politics and pro-patriarchy, nationalist views in Saki's fiction reflects a time when the old, manly, bourgeois traditions of coming home from work to "the angel of the hearth" and defending King and Country abroad increasingly clashed with new sexual identities, women's agitation for the vote, and the growing presence of non-British Others in the public imagination.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781476615325
Publisher:	McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Publication date:	06/23/2014
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	296
File size:	946 KB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Brian Gibson is a professor of English literature and film at Université Sainte-Anne in Nova Scotia.
Brian Gibson is a professor of English literature and film at Universite Sainte-Anne in Nova Scotia.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments  viii
Preface  1
A Note on the Source Text and on Saki’s Uncollected Writings  3
Introduction: Saki’s Dependent Dissidence  5
1. “A Furtive Sinister ‘Something’”: Saki’s Camp  27
2. “The Threat”: Saki’s ­Anti-Auntness, Misogyny and Anti-Suffragettism  91
3. “Cross Currents”: Anti-Semitism, Slavic Europe and Britishness in Saki’s Fiction  150
Conclusion  197
Appendix A—H. H. Munro’s Business Letters to John Lane The Bodley Head Publishing Company, 1911–15  217
Appendix B—H. H. Munro’s Letter to the Editor re: Enlistment, Morning Post, Wednesday, August 5, 1914  242
Appendix C—Schematic of the Writing Personas of Hector Hugh Munro  243
Chapter Notes  245
Bibliography  267
Index  277

Editorial Reviews

Gibson’s thorough critical re-examination situates this Edwardian author as deeply vexed...and vexing...commentator on issues of homeland security, anti-suffragist sentiment, class mobility, and the influence of ethnic trespassers.”—Year’s Work in English Studies.

From the Publisher