Saki, whose real name was Hector Hugh Munro, was born at the height of English Imperialism in Akyab, Burma, on December 18, 1870, to British parents, Charles Augustus and Mary Frances Munro. His father was a colonel in the British military. Following the death of his mother, he was sent back to Devon, England, where he lived with his grandmother and aunts. In 1887, his father returned to England after retiring and subsequently traveled throughout Europe with his children. Saki returned briefly to Burma in 1893 as a police functionary but returned to England due to his poor health. He turned to writing and became a foreign correspondent, traveling in Eastern Europe and France, from 1902 to 1909, writing for The Morning Post. With illustrator Francis Carruthers Gould, Saki collaborated on a successful series of political cartoons. His unusual pseudonym comes from the name of a character in Edward Fitzgerald's translation of...