18 December 1870

Hector Hugh Munro is born in Akyab, Burma, third child of Mary Frances Mercer and Charles Augustus Munro, inspector-general of police.

1872

Mother dies in a freak accident; Munro and his brother and sister sent to live with their grandmother and aunts in England.

1882

Munro sent to board at Pencarwick School, Exmouth.

1885

Starts Bedford Grammar School.

1887–93

Munro’s father retires and returns permanently from Burma; takes family on extended trips through Europe.

1893

Munro goes to Burma to work in the colonial police force.

1894

Returns to London on grounds of ill health.

1899

“Dogged”, Munro’s first published short story, appears in St. Paul’s Magazine, credited to “H.H.M.”.

1900

Publication of The Rise of the Russian Empire, the fruit of several years’ research in the British Library.

Munro’s first political sketches are published in the Westminister Gazette.

1902

The Not So Stories (political sketches) are published in The Westminster Annual.

Publication of The Westminster Alice (political sketches with illustrations by F. Carruthers Gould).

1902–1908

Employed as foreign correspondent by The Morning Post in the Balkans, Warsaw, Russia, and Paris.

1904

Publication of Reginald (short stories).

1908

Returns to London.

1910

Publication of Reginald in Russia (short stories).

1911

Publication of The Chronicles of Clovis (short stories).

1912

Publication of The Unbearable Bassington (novel).

1913

Publication of When William Came (novel).

1914

Publication of Beasts and Super-Beasts (short stories).

Death of father.

25 August 1914

Enlists as a trooper in 2nd King Edward’s Horse.

Sept 1914

Transfers to 22nd Battalion, Royal Fusiliers.

Nov 1915

Battalion is sent to France.

16 November 1916

Shot by a German sniper near Beaumont Hamel in northern France. His last words had been “Put that bloody cigarette out!”

1919

Publication of The Toys of Peace (posthumously collected short stories).

1924

Publication of The Square Egg and Other Sketches (posthumously collected short stories and sketches).

1924

Publication of “The Watched Pot” (play, written in 1914 with Charles Maude).

1926–27

Publication of The Works of Saki (8 volumes).

1930

Publication of The Complete Short Stories of Saki

First performance of “The Watched Pot”.

1943

London première of “The Watched Pot”.

© 2016 Bruce Gaston