Hector Hugh Munro wrote short stories under the pen name Saki. He took the name around 1900, and it is said to have been inspired by a figure in the works of the Persian poet Omar Khayyam. Saki is most known for his short tales, although he also penned novels and numerous journalism pieces. Some of his best-known stories include "The Blue Elephant", "The Hill of Ghosts", "The Golden Spiders", and "The Enemy". He was born on January 11, 1869, in Kashmiri Gate, Delhi, then part of British India. His father was an army officer who moved the family to various posts around India. When Hector was still a child, the family went back to England, where his father died when Saki was only twelve years old. After graduating from Cambridge University with a degree in mathematics, he returned to India to work as an accountant for the Indian Civil Service. His first collection of stories, The God of the Copyists, was published in 1896 when he was twenty-four years old. This was followed by another book a year later called Tales of Menzie Chateau. Both books were unsuccessful so Saki turned to writing fiction instead. In 1900, he published his third collection of stories titled Tales of Japan, which included some stories written before his marriage that was arranged for him by his parents. These stories showed Japanese culture through the eyes of an outsider, which made them popular among European readers at the time.