Saki's world contrasts the effete conventions and hypocrisies of Edwardian England with the ruthless but straightforward life-and-death struggles of nature. Nature generally wins in the end.
Saki's work is now in the public domain, and all or most of these stories are on the Internet.
Some of his best-known short stories are listed below.
"The Interlopers"
"The Interlopers" is a story based on two men, Georg Znaeym and Ulrich von Gradwitz, whose families have fought over a forest in the eastern Carpathian Mountains for generations. Ulrich's family legally owns the land, but Georg — feeling it rightfully belongs to him — hunts there anyway. One winter night, Ulrich catches Georg hunting in his forest. The two would never shoot without warning and soil their family’s honour, so they hesitate to acknowledge one another. As an “act of God,” a tree branch suddenly falls on each of them, trapping them both under a log. Gradually, they realize the futility of their quarrel and become friends to end the family feud. They call out for their men’s assistance, and after a brief period, Ulrich makes out ten figures approaching over a hill. The story ends with Ulrich’s realization that the "interlopers" on the hill are actually wolves.
"The Schartz-Metterklume Method"
At a railway station, an arrogant and overbearing woman mistakes the mischievous Lady Carlotta for the governess she expected. Lady Carlotta, deciding not to correct the mistake, presents herself as a proponent of "the Schartz-Metterklume method" of making children understand history by acting it out themselves, and chooses a rather unsuitable historical episode for her first lesson.
"The Toys of Peace"
Rather than giving her young boys gifts of toy soldiers and guns, their mother instructs her brother to give the children "peace toys" as an Easter present. When the packages are opened, young Bertie shouts "It's a fort!" and is disappointed when his uncle replies "It's a municipal dust-bin". The boys are initially baffled as to how to obtain any enjoyment from models of a school of art and a public library, or from little toy figures of John Stuart Mill, poetess Felicia Hemans, and astronomer Sir John Herschel. Youthful inventiveness finds a way, however.
"The Storyteller"
"The Storyteller" is a cynical antidote to crude didacticism. An aunt is traveling by train with her two nieces and a nephew. The children are naughty and mischievous. A bachelor is sitting opposite. The aunt starts telling a moralistic story, but is unable to satisfy the curiosity of the children. The bachelor intervenes and tells a story where the "good" person ends up being unwittingly devoured by a wolf, much to the children's delight. The bachelor is amused with the knowledge that in the future the children will embarrass their guardian by begging to be told "an improper story".
"The Unrest-Cure"
Saki's recurring hero Clovis Sangrail, a sly young man, overhears the complacent middle-aged Huddle complaining of his own addiction to routine and aversion to change. Huddle's friend makes the wry suggestion of the need for an "unrest-cure" (the opposite of a rest cure) to be performed, if possible, in the home. Clovis takes it upon himself to "help" the man and his sister by involving them in an invented outrage that will be a "blot on the twentieth century".
"Esmé"
In a hunting story with a difference, the Baroness tells Clovis of a hyena she and her friend Constance encountered alone in the countryside, who cannot resist the urge to stop for a snack. The story is a perfect example of Saki's delight in setting societal convention against uncompromising nature.
- The wailing accompaniment was explained. The gypsy child was firmly, and I expect painfully, held in his jaws.
The child is shortly devoured.
- Constance shuddered. "Do you think the poor little thing suffered much?" came another of her futile questions.
- "The indications were all that way,' I said; 'on the other hand, of course, it may have been crying from sheer temper. Children sometimes do."
"The Open Window"
A man with the unlikely name of Framton Nuttel comes to a country village for some peace and rest. He calls upon a lady named Mrs. Sappleton his sister used to know; for a few minutes he is left alone with her niece named Vera, who has quite an active imagination. She tells Framton a story about the tragedy of the lady's husband and two younger brothers, who had gone hunting one day three years earlier and never returned. The bodies were never found, and because of this the window from which they left is always kept open. When indeed they do return that very night, Framton, who has suffered from nerves in the past, runs out of the house, and the niece explains his sudden departure to her relatives with an equally imaginative fiction.
"Sredni Vashtar"
The story of a young, sickly child, Conradin. His cousin and guardian, Mrs. De Ropp, "would never... have confessed to herself that she disliked Conradin, though she might have been dimly aware that thwarting him 'for his good' was a duty which she did not find particularly irksome."
"Tobermory"
At a country house party a visiting professor announces to the guests that he has perfected a procedure to teach animals human speech. He demonstrates this on his host's cat, Tobermory. Soon it is clear that animals are permitted to view many private things on the assumption that they will remain silent...
"The East Wing"
A 're-discovered' short story, previously cited as a play and therefore less well known. A house party with its typical social mix of bumbling Major Boventry, the precious Lucien Wattleskeat, the wordy Canon Clore and a breathless hostess, Mrs Gramplain, is beset by a fire in the middle of the night in the east wing of the house. Begged by their hostess to save "my poor darling Eva — Eva of the golden hair," Lucien demurs on the grounds that he has never even met her. It is only on discovering that Eva is not a flesh and blood daughter, but Mrs Gramplain's painting of the daughter that she wished that she had had and which she has faithfully updated with the passing years, that Lucien declares a willingness to forfeit his life to rescue her, since "death in this case is more beautiful," a sentiment endorsed by the Major. As the two men disappear into the blaze, Mrs Gramplain recollects that she "sent Eva to Exeter to be cleaned." Thus the two men have lost their lives for nothing. (Compare with Oscar Wilde's novel
The Picture of Dorian Gray