7 h 4 minAudiobook2 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at costPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What if good manners leave you helpless against a child with a better imagination?
In Beasts and Super-Beasts, Saki brings animals, unruly children, and clever troublemakers into lives built on order. Drawing rooms and country houses become unexpectedly dangerous places. These short stories find dark humour in the gap between polite manners and bad intentions, where respectability offers little protection.
In The Open Window, Framton Nuttel seeks rest for his nerves, but his hostess’s young niece supplies an alarming family account. In The Storyteller, an aunt tries to entertain children in a railway carriage with a morally improving tale. Across the collection, adult authority meets opponents who know how to unsettle it.
What you’ll discover
- Politeness under pressure Enter orderly rooms where good manners cannot keep mischief or bad intentions at bay.
- Children with an edge Meet resourceful children who challenge adults rather than simply suffer their foolishness.
- An alarming family account Join Framton Nuttel as a young niece unsettles his search for quiet and rest.
- Trouble on the railway Watch an aunt bring a morally improving story to children in her care.
- The wild breaks through Discover how animals disturb human control, while people prove troublesome in their own right.
Is it for you?
Readers who enjoy brief, darkly funny stories, resourceful children, and the puncturing of social pretension will have plenty to relish.
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Beasts and Super-Beasts
by Saki· 1914
Animals and troublemakers disrupt the lives of respectable people.
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Language: English
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1 of 5
In Beasts and Super-Beasts, good manners offer little protection against someone with a better imagination. Saki places his characters in country houses, railway carriages, nurseries, and other settings where people expect certain rules to hold. Hosts should welcome guests, children should obey adults, and strangers should behave sensibly. His stories begin when someone decides to take advantage of those expectations.
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The author
Saki
1870–1916 · British short story writer
Saki was the pen name of Hector Hugh Munro (1870–1916), a British writer born in Burma. He lived in England and worked as a journalist. He wrote short stories and the novel The Unbearable Bassington (1912). His collections included Beasts and Super-Beasts (1914). He died in France during the First World War.
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What is Beasts and Super-Beasts about?
Beasts and Super-Beasts collects short comic stories about social pretension, adult authority, mischievous children, and the intrusion of the wild into respectable life. Saki repeatedly puts confident people in situations where their manners, assumptions, or sense of importance make them easy targets.
Which famous Saki stories are in Beasts and Super-Beasts?
The collection includes The Open Window, The Lumber Room, The Storyteller, and The Schartz-Metterklume Method. These stories show several sides of Saki's humour, from invented family histories and forbidden pleasures to unconventional storytelling and attacks on comfortable ideas about education.
Who was Saki?
Saki was the pen name of Hector Hugh Munro, a British writer best known for short stories that combine social satire with mischief and menace. He published Beasts and Super-Beasts in 1914 and died while serving in the First World War in 1916.
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