The Toys of Peace and other papers by Saki (1919)

After a very long wait (since 1914) devotees of Saki got this wonderful posthumous volume, which collected together the best of his work which was hitherto uncollected. It is dedicated to his battalion, the 22nd Royal Fusiliers, with whom he had died during the Battle of the Ancre in 1916. It also has a short memoir appended by Rothay Reynolds, a friend and fellow Russophile, as well as a lovely introduction by G. K. Chesterton. The first 29 stories are in the style we would expect from Saki, a concoction of Wildean charm with rather more elaborate savage black wit and gallows-delight. They range from the pointedly brilliant to lesser sketch-like material; a few more little drops of the necessary from that rare pen - in the end, to be savoured, no matter what. The last four pieces are placed in time by the publishers with footnotes. The first of them is The Image of the Lost Soul, written in 1891, a heartbreakingly sad elegant little fable. Then there are two fictional sketches from the time of the Balkan War in 1912-13. And finally what may have been his last story, "written at the front", entitled For the Duration of the War, which has nothing to do with the war Saki was busy fighting, rather an internecine one between a Rector and his wife marooned in the country. Another set of proofs of the fact that this author was one of the finest, and funniest, of his era.