Tobermory' - the title story of this collection - is widely considered one of Saki's finest pieces, in which a short-sighted dinner-party guest introduces a talking cat to the diners, inadvertently revealing gossip and pushing fickle characters into the limelight - in the process undermining the common perceptions of grandiose and genteel high society.
From some of his earliest successes, such as Gabriel-Ernest', The Bag' and the Clovis stories, about a young man with an impish sense of humour, to later tales such as The Boar-Pig', which is as bizarre as it is hilarious, and The Toys of Peace', which he was never able to see in print, this selection contains a wealth of well-known tales with vastly different themes - from reincarnation to psychological warfare - and bearing every trademark token of wit with which Saki has enthralled generations of eager readers.
Contains: The Blood-Feud of Toad-Water', Gabriel-Ernest', The Bag', The Mouse', Esmé', Tobermory', Mrs Packletide's Tiger', Hermann the Irascible', The Unrest-Cure', The Jesting of Arlington Stringham', Sredni Vashtar', The Chaplet', Filboid Studge', The Music on the Hill', The Hounds of Fate', The She-Wolf', Laura', The Boar-Pig', The Open Window', The Schartz-Metterklume Method', The Storyteller', The Lumber Room', The Philanthropist and the Happy Cat', The Toys of Peace', Tea', A Bread-and-Butter Miss', Bertie's Christmas Eve', Forewarned', The Interlopers' and The Bull'