Authors

Roald Dahl

August 11, 2015

1262

Born: September 13, 1916, Llandaff, Cardiff, United Kingdom
Died: November 23, 1990, Oxford, United Kingdom
TV shows: Tales of the Unexpected, Way Out, Orson Welles’ Great Mysteries
Spouse: Felicity d’Abreu Crosland( 1983–1990), Patricia Neal ( 1953–1983)
Children: Lucy Dahl, Tessa Dahl, Ophelia Dahl, Theo Matthew Dahl,Olivia Twenty Dahl

Biography

Roald Dahl was a British novelist, short story writer, poet, screenwriter, and fighter pilot .Roald Dahl was born in Wales on 13th September 1916 to Norwegian parents. His father died when he was 3 years old and he was raised by his mother. He had a fairly unhappy time at boarding school which provided some of the inspiration for his later stories.

While in Washington, D.C., Dahl met with author C.S. Forrester, who encouraged him to start writing. Dahl published his first short story in the Saturday Evening Post. He went on to write stories and articles for other magazines, including The New Yorker. Of his early writing career, Dahl told New York Times book reviewer Willa Petschek, “As I went on the stories became less and less realistic and more fantastic.” He went on to describe his foray into writing as a “pure fluke,” saying, “Without being asked to, I doubt if I’d ever have thought to do it.”

In 1943 he wrote his first childrens book, The Gremlins, which was originally intended to be made into an animated film by Walt Disney. The film was not made and instead Dahl turned to writing adult fiction, not writing another childrens story until the 1960s. His collections of short stories have been translated into many languages and have been best-sellers all over the world. Among them are “Someone Like You “, “Sweet Mystery Of Life “. He wrote TV series like “Tales of the Unexpected ” and the novel “My Uncle Oswald “.His books are mostly fantasy, and full of imagination. They are always a little cruel, but never without humour – a thrilling mixture of the grotesque and comic. In his stories, the background is perfectly worked out: details are very close to reality.

Roald Dahl didn’t only write books for grown-ups, but also for children, such as “James and the Giant Peach “, “Fantastic Mr. Fox ” and “The Gremlins “. About his children’s stories he said once: “I make my points by exaggerating wildly. That’s the only way to get through to children.” Roald Dahl is perhaps the most popular and best-selling children’s book author. However, these stories are so sarcastic and humorous, that also adults appreciate reading them.

Roald Dahl won many awards for his children`s stories. He won the children`s Book Award in 1983 for The BFG. In the same year, Roald also won the Whitebread Award for The Witches. Later, in 1989, a year before he died, he won the children`s Book Award for his book Matilda.

There is a museum called the Roald Dahl museum and story center in Buckinghamshire. Lots of children and adults go there every year to find out more about Roald Dalh and his amazing stories.
Roald Dahl died in November 1990. The Times called him “one of the most widely read and influential writers of our generation”

Publications

Children’s stories

The Gremlins (1943)
James and the Giant Peach (1961)
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (1964)
The Magic Finger (1 June 1966)
Fantastic Mr Fox (9 December 1970)
Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator (9 January 1972)
Danny, the Champion of the World (30 October 1975)
The Enormous Crocodile (24 August 1978)
The Twits (17 December 1980)
George’s Marvellous Medicine (21 May 1981)
The BFG (14 October 1982)
The Witches (27 October 1983)
The Giraffe and the Pelly and Me (26 September 1985)
Matilda (21 April 1988)
Esio Trot (19 April 1989)
The Vicar of Nibbleswicke (9 May 1990)
The Minpins (8 August 1991)

Adult Fiction

Novels

Sometime Never: A Fable for Supermen(1948)
My Uncle Oswald(1979)

Short story collections

Over To You: Ten Stories of Flyers and Flying (1946)
Someone Like You(1953)
Lamb to the Slaughter(1953)
Kiss Kiss (1960)
Twenty-Nine Kisses from Roald Dahl (1969)
Switch Bitch (1974)
The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More (1977)
The Best of Roald Dahl(1978)
Tales of the Unexpected (1979)
More Tales of the Unexpected (1980)
Roald Dahl’s Book of Ghost Stories (1983). Edited with an introduction by Dahl.
The Roald Dahl Omnibus (Dorset Press, 1986)
Two Fables (1986). “Princess and the Poacher” and “Princess Mammalia”.
Ah, Sweet Mystery of Life: The Country Stories of Roald Dahl(1989)
The Collected Short Stories of Dahl (1991)
The Roald Dahl Treasury (1997)
The Great Automatic Grammatizator (1997). (Known in the US asThe Umbrella Man and Other Stories).
Skin And Other Stories(2000)
Roald Dahl: Collected Stories (2006)

Roald Dahl – Writing and Book Facts
1. Roald Dahl wrote may of his books in a shed in his garden, sitting upon an old battered armchair. He balanced a specially designed writing board on his lap and wrote with an HB pencil on yellow legal pads.
2. He wrote everyday from 10 am to 12 noon and then from 4 pm to 6pm.
3. Dahl’s first book for children was The Gremlins, published in 1943.
4. Roald Dahl was writing a third Charlie Bucket story, Charlie Bucket and the White House, but he died before the book could be completed.
5. It has been said that Roald Dahl created more than 250 new words. Many of them appear in The BFG.
6. He used to record all of his story ideas in an old red exercise book.
7. He was friends with the American writer, Ernest Hemingway.
8. Roald Dahl wrote seventeen children’s stories, and he also produced many works for adults, as well as children’s poetry and film scripts. Click here to find out more aboutRoald Dahl’s books.
9. The first draft of the Magic Finger was titled The Almost Ducks, and James and the Giant Peach was going to be called James and the Giant Cherry.
10. Dahl often based his characters on people he had met in real life. For example, it is said that the grandmother in The Witches is inspired by his own mother, Sofie.
11. He wrote the screenplays for You Only Live Twice (the James Bond film) and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
12. Some of his favourite authors were: Rudyard Kipling, Charles Dickens and William Makepeace Thackery.