'The Most Malicious Writer Of Them All'

That's what Hector Hugh Munro – aka Saki -- is known as. But, finds Neil Clark, he could be quite moving, too.

(In passing, two pieces of trivia: Saki's last words were, "Put out that bloody cigarette", uttered in a trench just before being struck by a German sniper's bullet in the muddy battlefields of northern France. And the second: "The name Saki is commonly thought to have been taken by Munro from the final stanza of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam; others believe he was inspired by the 'small, long-tailed monkey from the western hemisphere' who appears as a central character in 'The Remoulding of Groby Lington'. ")