I received an email some time back with a reference in it to Sredni Vashtar. Sredni Vashtar. Who in the hell is Sredni Vashtar? I did a search and found a copy of Saki's (H. H. Munro's) short story on the web. I remembered reading it long ago and, in fact, found others in a short story collection I have in my library. The images were still as precise and fresh as I once remembered them without, at the time, having a sense of Saki: who he was, when he lived, how he died, so I ordered a copy of Saki's collected works which arrived today. Something to read on the train. Nice short sharp little pieces that even I with my current lack of attention span can read in a few minutes. Saki, born in 1870, dead of a sniper's bullet in 1916. The two stories I read after receiving that email had an odd combination of flippant humor and curious dread, a cool intelligence watching at a distance. Be curious to see how my judgement changes after I've read his entire body of work. Sredni Vastar. Who in the hell is Sredni Vashtar?

A note on the photograph: I received an email in June, 2007 from the owner of a self portrait by the painter Adrian Allinson and the photograph taken from the Penguin paperback is Allinson and not Munro (Saki). This has been confirmed by descendants of Allinson now living in California. My mistake. Interesting that Penguin didn't mention this, although if I had been asked to choose a stylized image that made me think “Saki”, I might have chosen this one.