Hector Hugh Munro, 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. Like his influence, Rudyard Kipling, Hector Hugh Munro was an Englishman by blood, born under the British Raj, in what is now modern-day Myanmar. His father was a police chief in Burma. Munro never knew him well. He knew his mother even less; she died shortly after being traumatized by the charging of a cow. Munro was principally raised by two aunts, and although he wanted to follow in his father’s footsteps as a policeman in the colonies, he had to leave the force after contracting malaria. It was during his recovery period that he decided to become a writer. In Easter Egg, Madame Barbara is ashamed of her son, Lester, who has proven time and time again that he has all the worst qualities of a coward. It was distinctly hard lines for Lady Barbara, who came of good fighting stock, and was one of the bravest women of her generation, that her son should be so undisguisedly a coward. If the hapless Lester were not offered some chance to redeem himself for his life of craven timidity, this wouldn’t be a short story worthy of Saki. The opportunity presents itself when he and his mother travel to Knobaltheim… You can listen online to free English audiobook “Easter Egg” by Saki on our website.
