Reginald in Russia

Saki made his name at the beginning of the Edwardian period with bitingly witty stories and political sketches, inheriting in many ways Oscar Wilde's vacated crown. His early main character, Reginald, was very like himself - a dissector of flabby respectability with a hilariously savage tongue. The first collected volume of Reginald stories was published in 1904. As the period drew on, publishing in a broad array of journals and magazines, Saki's range widened, baring the full extent of his genius for all to see: "Reginald sat in a corner of the Princess' salon and tried to forgive the furniture, which started out with an obvious intention of being Louis Quinze, but relapsed at frequent intervals into Wilhelm II." "Mrs Crick had a long family, and was therefore licensed, in the eyes of her world, to have a short temper..." "Possessed of only moderate means, he was able to live comfortably within his income, and still more comfortably within those of various tolerantly disposed associates." "Vanessa began to arrive at the conclusion that a husband who added a roving disposition to a settled income was a mixed blessing. It was one thing to go to the end of the world; it was quite another thing to make oneself at home there. Even respectability seemed to lose some of its virtue when one practised it in a tent." "There's always a chance that one of them might turn out depraved and vicious, and then you could disown him. I've heard of that being done." "But, good gracious, you've got to educate him first. You can't expect a boy to be vicious till he's been to a good school." Finally, in 1910, this book, the best of the stories of the intervening years, was pulled together, including one last Reginald story which gave this new volume its title, as well as some of the pieces on which the height of Saki's reputation still rests: the sensual, eerie gallows-delight of Gabriel-Ernest; the joyful late-shock nervous tension of The Reticence of Lady Anne, The Bag and The Mouse; and the worldly gleeful ghostliness of The Soul of Laploshka. Also included is the notable little 'playlet' A Baker's Dozen.