Beasts and Superbeasts

Beasts and Superbeasts is a collection of short stories, written by Saki (the literary pseudonym of Hector Hugh Munro) and first published in 1914. The title parodies that of George Bernard Shaw's Man and Superman.

Along with The Chronicles of Clovis, Beasts and Superbeasts is one of Saki's best-known works. It was his final collection of stories before his death in World War I, and several of its stories, in particular "The Open Window", are reprinted frequently in anthologies.

The book contains the following stories:

"The She-Wolf"
"Laura"
"The Boar-Pig"
"The Brogue"
"The Hen"
"The Open Window"
"The Treasure-Ship"
"The Cobweb"
"The Lull"
"The Unkindest Blow"
"The Romancers"
"The Schartz-Metterklume Method"
"The Seventh Pullet"
"The Blind Spot"
"Dusk"
"A Touch of Realism"
"Cousin Teresa"
"The Yarkand Manner"
"The Byzantine Omelette"
"The Feast of Nemesis"
"The Dreamer"
"The Quince Tree"
"The Forbidden Buzzards"
"The Stake"
"Clovis on Parental Responsibilities"
"A Holiday Task"
"The Stalled Ox"
"The Story-Teller"
"A Defensive Diamond"
"The Elk"
"Down Pens"
"The Name-Day"
"The Lumber Room"
"Fur"
"The Philanthropist and the Happy Cat"
"On Approval"

The majority of the volume's stories deal in some fashion with animals, providing the source for its title. The character of Clovis Sangrail, featured in earlier works by Saki, appears in several stories. Most of the stories appeared previously in periodicals.

Stylistically, Beasts and Superbeasts displays the simple language, cynicism and wry humor that characterize Saki's earlier literary output. (Wikipedia)

Hector Hugh Munro (18 December 1870 14 November 1916), better known by the pen name Saki, and also frequently as H. H. Munro, was a British writer whose witty, mischievous and sometimes macabre stories satirize Edwardian society and culture. He is considered a master of the short story, and often compared to O. Henry and Dorothy Parker. Influenced by Oscar Wilde, Lewis Carroll and Rudyard Kipling, he himself influenced A. A. Milne, Noël Coward and P. G. Wodehouse.

Besides his short stories (which were first published in newspapers, as was customary at the time, and then collected into several volumes), he wrote a full-length play, The Watched Pot, in collaboration with Charles Maude; two one-act plays; a historical study, The Rise of the Russian Empire, the only book published under his own name; a short novel, The Unbearable Bassington; the episodic The Westminster Alice (a parliamentary parody of Alice in Wonderland); and When William Came, subtitled A Story of London Under the Hohenzollerns, a fantasy about a future German invasion and occupation of Britain. (Wikipedia)

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