Nineteen brilliant stories from the satirical master about talking cats, fearsome ferrets, and absurd humans . . . At a country house party, Cornelius Appin announces that he has discovered a method by which animals can be taught to speak. His latest pupil is none other than Tobermory, the ginger cat belonging to his hosts, Sir Wilfred and Lady Blemley. As the guests express astonishment and incredulity, Sir Wilfred goes off to find Tobermory, who is lounging in the smoking room waiting for his tea. What Appin claims is true, and Tobermory demonstrates his remarkable talents—with unanticipated results. With this and other witty, imaginative, and insightful stories, this collection is a delight that captures the foibles of society in Edwardian England, yet remains entertainingly timeless in its portraits of human (and animal) nature.

Tobermory is a short story by Saki. Hector Hugh Munro (18 December 1870 - 13 November 1916), better known by the pen name Saki, and also frequently as H. H. Munro, was a British writer whose witty, mischievous and sometimes macabre stories satirised Edwardian society and culture. He is considered a master of the short story and often compared to O. Henry and Dorothy Parker. Influenced by Oscar Wilde, Lewis Carroll, and Kipling, he himself influenced A. A. Milne, Nol Coward, and P. G. Wodehouse.Beside his short stories (which were first published in newspapers, as was customary at the time, and then collected into several volumes), he wrote a full-length play, The Watched Pot, in collaboration with Charles Maude; two one-act plays; a historical study, The Rise of the Russian Empire, the only book published under his own name; a short novel, The Unbearable Bassington; the episodic The Westminster Alice (a Parliamentary parody of Alice in Wonderland), and When William Came, subtitled A Story of London Under the Hohenzollerns, a fantasy about a future German invasion of Britain.

Born in Burma in 1870, Scottish writer H. H. Munro adopted the pseudonym Saki to satirize the social conventions, cruelty, and foolishness of the Edwardian era. His highly readable blend of flippant humor and outrageous inventiveness is often overlaid with a mood of horror. After Munro's untimely death in action during World War I, Christopher Morley wrote: "the empty glass we turn down for him is the fragile, hollow-stemmed goblet meant for the finest champag≠ it is of the driest." Readers can sample Munro's special brand of well-plotted satiric fiction in this inexpensive collection of his best tales. In addition to the title story, selections include "Tobermory," "Laura," "The Open Window," and "The Schartz-Metterklume Method." With its biting wit and vein of cruelty, Munro's work has sometimes been compared to early Evelyn Waugh; admirers of Waugh and other discerning readers are sure to savor this stimulating taste of vintage Saki.

Debi Gliori's delightful The Tobermory Cat was one of the most popular children's books of 2012. Based on a real cat known to local inhabitants as well as thousands of visitors to Mull, the island's ginger tom and his extraordinary antics have now become world famous. Young children will love this counting book in which the Tobermory Cat wakes up hungry and explores the town in search of something to eat.

An NYRB Classics Original The whimsical, macabre tales of British writer H. H. Munro—better known as Saki—skewer the banality and hypocrisy of polite English society between the end of the Victorian era and the beginning of World War I. Saki’s heroes are enfants terribles who marshal their considerable wit and imagination against the cruelty and fatuousness of a decorous and doomed world. Here, Saki’s brilliantly polished dark gems are paired with illustrations by the peerless Edward Gorey, available for the first time in an English-language edition. The fragile elegance and creeping menace of Gorey’s pen-and-ink drawings perfectly complements Saki’s population of delicate ladies, mischief-making charges, spectral guests, sardonic house pets, flustered authority figures, and delightfully preposterous imposters.

Saki: The Blind Spot and Other Stories of the Supernatural Hector Hugh Munro is perhaps the most graceful spokesman for England's ""golden afternoon"" - those slow and peaceful years prior to the outbreak of World War I. The good wit of bad manners, elegantly spiced with irony and deftly controlled malice, has made Saki stories small, perfect gems of the English language. The Blind Spot and Other Stories of the Supernatural contain all his short stories about the supernatural.