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Super-Beast
- Author
- Oliver Soden
- Narrator
- Oliver Soden
- Publisher
- Orion
- Publish Date
- 5 November 2026
- Run Time
- 11 hours 37 minutes
- Format
- Audiobook
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What to expect
'Exquisite . . . A vivid and elegant record of a lost world' PHILIP HOARE
'Wise, witty and wry - the biography that Saki, and all devoted Sakiphants, deserve' BEN SCHOTT
There has been perhaps no more mischievous influence on the English comic imagination than that of Hector Hugh Munro, the enigmatic genius better known as Saki.
His stories are among the wittiest ever written: dark satires of Edwardian society, populated by decadent dandies, wild beasts and cunning children, their playful wickedness inspiring figures from P. G. Wodehouse to Roald Dahl, Noël Coward to The League of Gentlemen.
But Saki is among the most mysterious and contradictory characters in literary history: conservative campaigner, courageous soldier, pioneer of the camp sensibility, and a pagan lord of misrule. Leaving almost no letters or papers, he had an uncanny ability to disappear.
In the first biography of Saki for nearly half a century, Oliver Soden follows the tracks of this rare beast, discovering much startling new material. This is a book as witty and adventurous as its subject, roaming from Edwardian drawing rooms to the Burmese jungle, from revolutionary Russia to the killing fields of the Somme. Saki is revealed as never before, in all his outrageous brilliance.
Critics Review
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Oliver Soden has done the impossible . . . One of the best literary biographies I have ever read. But it is more than a literary biography . . . A window onto the cultural and political meaning of much of the twentieth century and therefore much of our own . . . Thrillingly readable . . . Soden's phrase-making is almost as masterful as his subject's . . . He has weaved something miraculous
STEPHEN FRY
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The mystery of Saki unravelled. A quite extraordinary story, quite beautifully told
GYLES BRANDRETH
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Oliver Soden's gorgeous study of Saki is a resurrection of an exquisite extinct animal, brought back to life in flash-lit scenes. Far more exciting than mere biography, it reclaims, darkly and in beautiful prose, a fascinating figure of queer literature whose transformative stories stand as a slyly subliminal alternative history - a vivid and elegant record of a lost world
PHILIP HOARE
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Wise, witty and wry - the biography that Saki, and all devoted Sakiphants, deserve
BEN SCHOTT
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A triumph. Delivering detailed research and captivating insights with wit and candour throughout, Soden brings a life full of 'scuttering footsteps and hurried embassies' brilliantly to the page. A marvellous act of chronicling, clear-sighted and delighting in equal measure
ELEY WILLIAMS
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I cannot think of a biographer I would sooner reach for to make sense of the contradictions of Saki's life, character and writing than Oliver Soden. A marvellous book
THE REVEREND RICHARD COLES
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Soden has written the story of more than a fascinating writer - Super Beast traces the arc of an oppressive Edwardian childhood, through the blossoming of a talented social satirist, to a maturity rendered speechless by brutality in the trenches of WWI, and finally to an early grave. In this, Soden has written the biography of an entire generation
MEG ROSOFF
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Details
- Author
- Oliver Soden
- Narrator
- Oliver Soden
- Duration
- 11 hours 37 minutes
- Release Date
- 5 November 2026
- ISBN
- 9781399625890
- Format
- Audiobook
- Publisher
- Orion
- Genre
- Biography: writers, First World War
Synopsis
'A quite extraordinary story, quite beautifully told' GYLES BRANDRETH 'Exquisite . . . A vivid and elegant record of a lost world' PHILIP HOARE 'Wise, witty and wry - the biography that Saki, and all devoted Sakiphants, deserve' BEN SCHOTTThere has been perhaps no more mischievous influence on the English comic imagination than that of Hector Hugh Munro, the enigmatic genius better known as Saki.His stories are among the wittiest ever written: dark satires of Edwardian society, populated by decadent dandies, wild beasts and cunning children, their playful wickedness inspiring figures from P. G. Wodehouse to Roald Dahl, Noël Coward to The League of Gentlemen. But Saki is among the most mysterious and contradictory characters in literary history: conservative campaigner, courageous soldier, pioneer of the camp sensibility, and a pagan lord of misrule. Leaving almost no letters or papers, he had an uncanny ability to disappear.In the first biography of Saki for nearly half a century, Oliver Soden follows the tracks of this rare beast, discovering much startling new material. This is a book as witty and adventurous as its subject, roaming from Edwardian drawing rooms to the Burmese jungle, from revolutionary Russia to the killing fields of the Somme. Saki is revealed as never before, in all his outrageous brilliance.
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