The Open Window | Saki (H. H. Munro) | A Bitesized Audio Production

Framton Nuttel, a nervous and neurotic young man on a rest-cure in the country, visits his neighbour Mrs. Sappleton. Her 15 year old niece, Vera, entertains him by explaining the sinister reason that the French windows are kept open every evening...

A new, original recording of a classic public domain text, read and performed by Simon Stanhope for Bitesized Audio.

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Hector Hugh Munro (1870–1916), better known by his pen names Saki or H. H. Munro, was a British author who became perhaps the greatest master of the short story form in English. He was born in Burma, then part of British India, where his father was an Inspector General for the Imperial Police, but following the death of his mother when he was just two years old Hector and his siblings were sent home to England, to live in Devon with his paternal grandmother and two maiden aunts. The aunts (Augusta and Charlotte) were apparently strict and austere and provided much material for future character studies in Saki's satires. After some 10 years or so, Hector eventually "escaped" to boarding school. In his early 20s he followed his father's footsteps and enrolled in the Indian Imperial Police, but was invalided home with fever after little over a year. Turning to writing to make his living, Munro began working as a journalist in the late 1890s. He wrote countless pieces for magazine and newspaper publication, and took up the pen name Saki around 1900. His always witty – and sometimes macabre – stories established his reputation as one of the greatest satirists of the Edwardian era. He also worked as a sketchwriter for publications including the Daily Express and the Morning Post, where he was a foreign correspondent. He enlisted in World War I, despite being officially over-age in 1914, and was killed by a sniper while sheltering in a shell hole during the Battle of the Ancre in November 1916. His burial place is unknown.

The Open Window first appeared in the Westminster Gazette on November 18, 1911. It was later collected in the anthology 'Beasts and Super-Beasts', published in 1914.

Recording © Bitesized Audio 2020.