The Chronicles of Clovis

The Chronicles of Clovis, which was published in 1911,was the third of Saki's collections of short stories. The character of Clovis Sangrail is, like Saki's earlier hero Reginald, vain, sarcastic and self regarding and another vehicle for Saki's delicious, biting wit satirizing Edwardian high society in some of the funniest of exquisite literary miniatures.



Saki was the pen name of Hector Hugh Monro. He was born in Burma in 1870 where his father was a senior official in the Burma Police. From the age of two he lived with two maiden aunts and his grandmother in Devon and was educated in Exmouth and at the Bedford Grammar School. Later he travelled in Europe with his father. He joined the Burma police but resigned after a year because of ill health and returned to England where he began his writing career as a journalist and short story writer for magazines and newspapers. Saki is regarded as a master of the short story.



At the start of the First World War he refused a commission, enlisted as a private, and went to France where, in November 1916, he was killed by a shot to the head, his last words being "Put that bloody cigarette out."