The Chronicles of Clovis (1911) by Saki, the pseudonym of Hector Hugh Munro, is the author's third volume of short stories, 28 in number, the majority of which had earlier appeared in various newspapers and magazines. Witty, socially satirical, and sometimes chilling, they narrate the exploits of Clovis Sangrail, Bertie van Tahn and other privileged characters in Edwardian England. The collection is acknowledged to contain some of his best and most popular stories.
The majority of the stories in The Chronicles of Clovis had previously appeared in newspapers and magazines: predominantly The Westminster Gazette, but also The Daily Mail, The Bystander and The Leinsters' Magazine.[1] In February 1911, when Munro decided to issue them in book form, he turned, not to Methuen, the publisher of his two previous collections Reginald and Reginald in Russia, but to John Lane of The Bodley Head, whom he perhaps found more congenial as having previously published The Yellow Book and works by Oscar Wilde.[2][3] Over the next few months, up to August 1911, he wrote five further short stories for inclusion in the volume and composed a dedication, also dated August 1911, to "the Lynx Kitten, with his reluctantly given consent". His, or its, identity is unknown. The author's name appeared as both Saki and H. H. Munro. Munro originally wanted to call the book "Tobermory and Other Sketches", then changed his mind in favour of "Beasts and Super-Beasts", which was eventually used as the title of his next collection. The final choice seems to have been the publisher's, and did not meet with Munro's approval.[4] The Chronicles of Clovis was published in October 1911.[5]
The title character, Clovis Sangrail, is the protagonist of some stories and is hardly more than mentioned in others, Munro having been at some pains to bring a degree of unity to his book by revising some of his non-Clovis stories to give Clovis an incidental role.[6][7] He also featured in some later stories by Munro.[8] Clovis, the "Playboy of the Week-End World",[9] is a snobbish, amoral, epicene, complacent young dandy,[10][11] "an exquisite projection of adolescent ambition and...boyhood brutality" in George James Spears' words.[12] He is the enemy of pretension, conformism and philistinism.[13][8] He has antecedents in the works of Oscar Wilde[11] and successors in the drawing-room comedies of Noël Coward.[10] Another recurring character in the book is Bertie van Tahn, another rebellious, mischievous young man, though less likeable than Clovis. He was, Munro tells us, "so depraved at seventeen that he had long ago given up trying to be worse". Both are practical jokers, but Bertie always indulges in this practice for its own sake and without pity, whereas Clovis sees it as a kind of wild justice which may sometimes be employed on behalf of others. No woman in distress ever appeals to Clovis in vain.[6][14]