Looking in Wikipedia and its sources, the Chambers
Dictionary of Biography, and Oxford and Cambridge guides to literature, there is no
reference to any honours received by Saki, even by his real-life name of HH Munro.
Wikipedia does mention that "in recognition of his contribution to literature, a title="Blue plaque" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_plaque">blue
plaque has been affixed to a building in which Munro once lived on Mortimer
Street in href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_London">central London." A blue
plaque is fixed to a British building or site in or at which a famous person lived or
worked, or where a famous event took place. They are mostly in London, though there are
similar schemes throughout the UK, and in the US and Australia. The plaque
reads
"HECTOR HUGH MUNRO alias SAKI 1870-1916 Short Story
Writer lived here"
It was erected by the cultural
organisation English Heritage, which now runs the Blue Plaque scheme, in 2003. Here is
an image:
href="http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/discover/blue-plaques/search/munro-hector-hugh-1870-1916-a.k.a.-saki">http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/discover/blue-plaques/search/munro-hector-hugh-1870-1916-a.k.a.-saki
The
district of London in which you find Mortimer Street, Fitzrovia, was at the time Munro
lived there a poorer and less Bohemian neighbourhood than it later
became.
Perhaps the strongest recognition of his work is
the influence it had on later British writers. They include: PG Wodehouse, who wrote the
Jeeves and Wooster books and also worked as screenwriter and lyricist in the US, AA
Milne, who wrote somewhat more than just the Winnie the Pooh books for children, and
Noel Coward (whom some call "The Master"), playwright, lyricist, novelist and performer.
Later writers with whom his work can be compared include Roald Dahl in his short
stories, and Tibor Fischer's blackly humourous novels.
Saki
is unlikely to have received any honours during his short life, as his writing was
almost all pointedly satirical. He sits firmly in a strand of British writing which
begins with gothic novels such as Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. He
can be compared in style with contemporaries such as EF Benson, and in the US HP
Lovecraft.
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