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From
the publication of James and the Giant Peach and
Charlie And The Chocolate Factory in the 1960s to
his death in 1990, Roald Dahl became the most successful
children’s author in the world. A decade later, a fresh
generation of children seek out his work with instinctive
fanaticism. His creations endure - through Hollywood movies,
theatre adaptations and musical works, but still most potently
of all through the pure magic of his writing upon the page.
THE
BASICS Born
Llandaff, Glamorgan, September 13th 1916
Died November 23rd 1990
Jobs Shell representative in Tanganyika, Fighter
Pilot, Air Attache, Wing Commander, Author
First Book for Young People The Gremlins, 1943
THE BOOKSRoald
Dahl was born in Wales of Norwegian parents - the child
of a second marriage. His father and elder sister died when
Roald was just three. His mother was left to raise two stepchildren
and her own four children. Roald was her only son.
He had
an unhappy time at school - at Llandaff Cathedral School,
at St Peter’s prep school in Weston-super-Mare and
then at Repton in Derbyshire. He excelled at sports, particularly
heavyweight boxing, but was deemed by his English master
to be “quite incapable of marshalling his thoughts
on paper”. There was one advantage to going to Repton,
however - the school was close to Cadbury’s and the
company regularly involved the schoolboys in testing new
varieties of chocolate bars.
Dahl’s
unhappy time at school was to influence his writing greatly.
He once said that what distinguished him from most other
children’s writers
was “this business of remembering what it was like
to be young”. Roald’s childhood and schooldays
are the subject of his autobiography Boy.
At 18,
rather than going to university, Roald joined the Public
Schools Exploring Society’s expedition to Newfoundland.
He then started work for Shell as a salesman in Dar es Salaam.
He was 23 when war broke out and signed up with the Royal
Air Force in Nairobi. At first, the station doctor balked
at his height (6ft 6in) but he was accepted as a pilot officer
and spent the early part of the war flying birdplane Gladiator
fighters against the Italians in the Western Desert of Libya.
Dahl’s exploits in the war are detailed in his autobiography
Going Solo. They include having a luger pointed at his head
by the leader of a German convoy, crash-landing in no-man’s
land (and sustaining injuries that entailed having his nose
pulled out and reshaped!) and even surviving a direct hit
during the Battle of Athens.
Eventually,
he was sent home as an invalid but transferred, in 1942,
to Washington as an air attaché. Here Dahl’s
writing career began in earnest following a meeting with
C S Forrester, author of Captain Hornblower. Forrester asked
Dahl to tell him his version of the war, intending to write
an account for a future publication. Dahl chose to set down
his experiences on paper. Forrester was so impressed with
Dahl’s writing that he immediately found a magazine
editor to take it for publication. Roald remained in the
States, achieving recognition through short-stories for
newspapers and magazines.
Roald
Dahl’s first novel for children was not, as many suppose,
James and the Giant Peach but The Gremlins,
which was published in 1943 and adapted from a script written
for Disney. Dahl went on to write several film scripts,
including the James Bond adventure You Only Live Twice
and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. He disliked many
of the film adaptions of his own work which appeared in
his lifetime.
Dahl
and his family moved back to England in 1960 and settled
in Great Missenden in Buckinghamshire at Gipsy House. It
was here, in a small hut at the bottom of the garden, that
he would write most of his unforgettable books. By all accounts,
the hut was a dingy little place but one that Roald viewed
as a cosy refuge. Christopher Simon Sykes in Harpers &
Queen recalls: “A dirty plastic curtain covered the
window. In the centre stood a faded wing-back armchair,
inherited from his mother, and it was here that Dahl sat,
his feet propped up on a chest, his legs covered by a tartan
rug, supporting on his knees a thick roll of corrugated
paper upon which was propped his writing board. Photographs,
drawings and other mementoes were pinned to the walls, while
a table on his right was covered with a collection of favourite
curiosities such as one of his own arthritic hip bones,
and a remarkably heavy ball made from the discarded silver
paper of numerous chocolate bars consumed during his youth.”
Roald’s
career had to take second place when his family suffered
several tragedies. His oldest daughter Olivia died after
a bout of measles developed into encephalitis (inflammation
of the brain). Roald’s three-month-old son Theo was
brain-damaged after a road accident. With the help of two
friends, an engineer and a neurosurgeon, Roald spent months
devising a valve for draining fluid from the brain to enable
Theo to live independent of machines. The Wade-Dahl-Till
valve is still in use today and Theo has made a spectacular
recovery - now in his 30s, he recently married. Patricia
Neal, Roald’s first wife, suffered three massive strokes
but, with Roald’s help and encouragement, she too recovered
sufficiently to resume her acting career.
Both
James and the Giant Peach and Charlie and the
Chocolate Factory were published in the USA several
years before appearing in the UK in 1967. Of the latter,
Elaine Moss wrote in The Times, “It is the funniest
children’s book I have read in years; not just funny
but shot through with a zany pathos which touches the young
heart.” The book went on to achieve phenomenal success
all over the world. The Chinese edition was the biggest
printing of any book ever - two million copies!
An unbroken
string of bestselling titles followed, including The
BFG, Danny The Champion of the World, The Twits,
The Witches, Boy and Going Solo. Sales of Matilda,
Roald’s penultimate book, broke all previous records
for a work of children’s fiction with UK sales of over
half a million paperbacks in six months.
Roald
Dahl died in 1990 at the age of 74. He was working to the
end on The Vicar of Nibbleswicke.
Since
Roald Dahl’s death, his books have more than maintained
their popularity. Total sales of the UK editions are around
37 million, with more than 1 million copies sold every year!
Sales have grown particularly strongly in America where
Dahl books are now achieving the bestselling status that
curiously proved elusive during the author’s lifetime.
In a
World Book Day 1999 survey amongst 15,000 7-11 year-olds,
Matilda was voted the most popular children’s
book. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Twits
and The BFG also featured in the top ten.
Movies
of James and the Giant Peach and Matilda have
been much more successful, commercially and artistically,
than the earlier adaptations. A film of The BFG and
a new version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory are
on the way.
The
Roald Dahl Children’s Gallery, part of Bucks County
Museum in Aylesbury, is a major attraction for all Dahl
fans.
The
South Wales Echo is currently campaigning for a Cardiff
street to be named after Dahl. “He would have been
absolutely thrilled,” says Liccy.
Throughout
his life Roald Dahl gave time and money to help people in
need. After his death, his widow Liccy Dahl established
The Roald Dahl Foundation to continue this tradition. The
Foundation offers grants in three key areas - Literacy,
Neurology and Haematology - supporting or funding projects
that help people in many practical ways. The Foundation
is also bringing classical music to children by making it
fun, through music compositions based on Roald Dahl’s
work. For further information, please contact The Roald
Dahl Foundation on 01494 890465.
WHAT
HE SAID..."I
have a passion for teaching kids to become readers, to become
comfortable with a book, not daunted. Books shouldn’t
be daunting, they should be funny, exciting and wonderful;
and learning to be a reader gives a terrific advantage.”
“If
you are going to get anywhere in life you have to read a
lot of books.”
“Writing
is all propaganda, in a sense. You can get at greediness
and selfishness by making them look ridiculous. The greatest
attribute of a human being is kindness, and all the other
qualities like bravery, and perseverance are secondary to
that.”
“I
only write about things that are exciting or funny. Children
know I’m on their side.”
“If
you want to remember what it’s like to live in a child’s
world, you’ve got to get down on your hands and knees
and live like that for a week. You’ll find you have
to look up at all these… giants around you who are
always telling you what to do and what not to do.”
“Watch
with glittering eyes the whole world around you because
the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely
places. Those who don’t believe in magic will never
find it.”
From THE MINPINS
WHAT
THEY SAY ABOUT ROALD DAHL...His
appeal to children…
“He
speaks to children. He doesn’t speak down to them.
He asks them to think, he asks them to be afraid, and he
asks them to conquer his fears.”
Danny de Vito
“Sometimes
his work was a little too strong for grown-ups. It was scary
and messy, but children understood that this was only because
lots of adults were not very nice themselves, beastly even.”
Yorkshire Post
“The
very particular strength of his writing… is that it
speaks directly to children. He uses their vision to see
things and their expressions to describe them.”
The Independent
“Roald
Dahl… addressed his child readers over the heads and
behind the backs of disapproving adults, and they loved
him for it. He revelled in the vulgar and disgusting, drawing
delighted cries of “yuck” with his graphic descriptions
of food caught in the beard of Mr Twit.”
The Independent
“You
never get the feeling when reading Dahl that he was showing
off for the sake of it, although there’s often no shortage
of verbal pyrotechnics in his stories. One of his many skills
lay in not talking down to either his junior or grown-up
audiences. Sheer magic.”
Publishing News
“Dahl
books, strong on plot and instilled with a tremendous sense
of mischief, insist on seeing the world through children’s
eyes, and often portray adults as silly, uncomprehending
or insensitive; no wonder kids love them.”
Sainsbury’s - The Magazine
His
importance as a writer…"One
of the most widely read and influential writers of our generation
."
The Times
“Dahl’s
influence on the generations of readers who have moved enthusiastically
from one of his novels to the next has been dramatic.”
The Scotsman
“No
one could dispute the huge role he played in getting children
hooked into reading by offering them the kind of stories
they really wanted to read. Stylistically too, he helped
new readers by using language simply and accurately. The
quality of his writing is easily discernible by the fluency
with which it can be read aloud… For many children
Roald Dahl is synonymous with reading. He is the one author
whose books are currency among children, being passed eagerly
from hand to hand as soon as they appear.”
The Independent
“It
may well be that (Roald Dahl) is better known than any other
English-language author of the second half of this century.”
Independent on Sunday
“No
other writer has combined imagination, wit and quirkiness
as well as Roald Dahl. His books show great literary skill,
blending a vigorous style with a powerful use of language.”
Junior Education
“If
you want to talk about children’s books you have to
start with Dahl and finish with him.”
Susan Hill
“He
was our modern Pied Piper.”
The Times
“Roald
Dahl was the greatest storyteller of our time.”
Sainsbury’s - The Magazine
“Roald
Dahl was to children’s books what the late, great Jimi
Hendrix was to guitar playing: a dazzling beacon that was
so far ahead of the rest that none could catch him and few
could match.”
Publishing News
“Over
a 20-year period, from James and the Giant Peach to The
Giraffe, the Pelly and Me, Dahl wrote an astonishing series
of books for children of all ages which will be in print
as long as there are bookshops to stock them…he is
one of the greatest children’s writers of all time,
and the finest teller of tales Britain has produced in the
second half of this century.”
Evening Standard
Memories of the man…“I
ended up spending four hours with the author… indelibly
etched on my memory. He wore a dark blue shirt with blue
shorts from which his impossibly long legs protruded like
twin sticks; his long, lean, marvellously expressive face
was creased with years of laughter lines, his mouth never
far from a smile that reached his eyes every time. Dahl
was amusing, interesting, stimulating company and a charming,
punctilious, entertaining host.”
Maria Lexton, Time Out
“Every
evening after my sister Lucy and I had gone to bed, my father
would walk slowly up the stairs, his bones creaking louder
than the staircase, to tell us a story. I can see him now,
leaning against the wall of our bedroom with his hands in
his pockets looking into the distance, reaching into his
imagination. It was here, in our bedroom, that he began
telling many of the stories that later became the books
you know.”
Ophelia Dahl
“He
loved to collect things. When he was young it was birds’
eggs and chocolate wrappers. As an adult he collected wine
and paintings. However, he also collected ideas. He had
a small exercise book in which he wrote down words that
he liked the sound of. His mind was twitchy, like his fingers,
which were always moving, as though he wished he could wrap
them around a pencil and keep writing.”
Ophelia Dahl
“He
loved food. It was, like literature and music, one of the
essential good things in life. When he came to Gipsy House,
after moving from America, all he was worried about was
his pea steamer!”
Liccy Dahl
“He
did everything with panache right down to cooking poached
eggs which he served in pieces of fried bread with holes
cut out of them to make a nest… There was never a moment
when he wasn’t inventing or making life fun.”
Liccy Dahl
“For
those who knew him well, the most important things were
his fantastic enthusiasm and his great generosity. “Treats!”
he would cry, displaying a dinner table laden with quantities
of his favourite food: Norwegian prawns, or lobster, or
caviar or scrumptious roast beef. Second and third helpings
were pressed on his lucky guests. With the coffee he would
place on the table a grubby plastic box crammed with chocolate
goodies, irresistible to dogs, children and adults alike.”
Spiv Barran, Roald’s sister-in-law
The Books...“Rich
in language, humour and charm, The BFG is a wonderful romp
in the land of giants.”
Parents
“Candid
and absolutely compelling.”
Time Out on Boy
“Dahl’s
autobiographies, Boy and Going Solo, reveal a man whose
life was as rich as his works. In them, he describes central
themes to his fiction - the injustices and corporal punishments
of boarding-school life, his travels in Africa and his wartime
exploits.”
Junior Education
“This
lively tale of a bad-tempered crocodile shares the familiar
thread of gruesome detail and slapstick humour which children
love.”
Child Education on The Enormous Crocodile
“Full
of quirky invention.”
The Daily Telegraph on Esio Trot
“Going
Solo has to be the most exciting autobiography ever written.”
Early Times
“It
is not often that the English language has been put to such
good purpose.”
Junior Bookshelf on The Great Automatic Grammatizator
and Other Stories
“One
of children’s literature’s classic stories…
Master storyteller Roald Dahl stretches the imagination
of the child like no other.”
Lancashire Evening Post on James and the Giant Peach
“Dahl
is in sparkling form with those long lists of preposterous
words - whangdoodles, hornswogglers, snozzwanglers and vermicious
knids - which his readers adore.”
Shirley Hughes on The Minpins
“The
Minpins is a gripping tale of magic and mystery.”
Young Telegraph
“The
Twits is really good because it’s silly and a bit disgusting.”
8 year-old reader quoted in Parents
“Dahl’s
wicked sense of humour is given full scope in this story…
children of 6 to 10 years will lap this up.”
Practical Parenting on The Twits
“A
warm, witty tale of the most terrifying creatures on earth.”
Yorkshire Post on The Witches
“Funny,
wise and deliciously disgusting.”
Judges of the Whitbread Award on The Witches
AWARDS
The
Whitbread Award 1983 for The Witches
Federation of Children’s Book Groups’ Children’s
Book Award 1988 for Matilda
Information
sappily by Penguin Books
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