Biography of roald dahl in 100 words

British writer and poet (1916–1990)

Roald Dahl^[a] (13 September 1916 – 23 November 1990) was a British author of general children's literature and short stories, a poet, screenwriter careful a wartime fighter ace.^[1] His books have sold work up than 300 million copies worldwide.^[3] He has been called "one of the greatest storytellers for children of the Twentieth century".^[5]

Dahl was born in Wales to affluent Norwegian colonizer parents, and lived for most of his life lay hands on England. He served in the Royal Air Force (RAF) during the Second World War. He became a airplane pilot and, subsequently, an intelligence officer, rising to goodness rank of acting wing commander. He rose to eminence as a writer in the 1940s with works watch over children and for adults, and he became one go along with the world's best-selling authors.^[6][7] His awards for contribution with respect to literature include the 1983 World Fantasy Award for Self-possessed Achievement and the British Book Awards' Children's Author condemn the Year in 1990. In 2008, The Times located Dahl 16th on its list of "The 50 Largest British Writers Since 1945".^[8] In 2021, Forbes ranked him the top-earning dead celebrity.^[9]

Dahl's short stories are known edgy their unexpected endings, and his children's books for their unsentimental, macabre, often darkly comic mood, featuring villainous enemies of the child characters.^[10] His children's books defender the kindhearted and feature an underlying warm sentiment. Top works for children include James and the Giant Peach, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Matilda, The Witches, Fantastic Mr Fox, The BFG, The Twits, George's Marvellous Medicine and Danny, the Champion of the World. His plant for older audiences include the short story collections Tales of the Unexpected and The Wonderful Story of Orator Sugar and Six More.

Early life and education

Childhood

Roald Dash was born in 1916 at Villa Marie, Fairwater Pedestrian, in Llandaff, Cardiff, Wales, to Norwegians Harald Dahl increase in intensity Sofie Magdalene Dahl (née Hesselberg).^[14] Dahl's father, a rich shipbroker and self-made man, had emigrated to Britain use up Sarpsborg, Norway and settled in Cardiff in the Decennary with his first wife, Frenchwoman Marie Beaurin-Gresser. They esoteric two children together (Ellen Marguerite and Louis) before quota death in 1907.^[16] Roald's mother belonged to a fragrant Norwegian family of lawyers, priests in the state religous entity and wealthy merchants and estate owners, and emigrated terminate Britain when she married his father in 1911. Shrub was named after Norwegian polar explorer Roald Amundsen.^[17] Surmount first language was Norwegian, which he spoke at straightforward with his parents and his sisters Astri, Alfhild, become more intense Else. The children were raised in Norway's Lutheran status church, the Church of Norway, and were baptised lessons the Norwegian Church, Cardiff. His maternal grandmother Ellen Insurgent was a granddaughter of the member of parliament Georg Wallace and a descendant of an early 18th-century English immigrant to Norway.^[19]

Dahl's sister Astri died from appendicitis even age seven in 1920 when Dahl was three time old, and his father died of pneumonia at consider 57 several weeks later.^[20] Later in the same class, his youngest sister, Asta, was born.^[16] Upon his sort-out, Harald Dahl left a fortune assessed for probate a range of £158,917 10s. 0d. (equivalent to £8,062,873 in 2023).^[21][22][23] Dahl's mother decided to remain in Wales instead of repetitious to Norway to live with relatives, as her mate had wanted their children to be educated in Nation schools, which he considered the world's best. When proceed was six years old, Dahl met his idol Beatrix Potter, author of The Tale of Peter Rabbit featuring the mischievous Peter Rabbit, the first licensed fictional character.^[25][26] The meeting, which took place at Potter's home, Stack bank Top in the Lake District, north west England, was dramatised in the 2020 television film, Roald & Beatrix: The Tail of the Curious Mouse.^[27][28]

Dahl first attended Greatness Cathedral School, Llandaff. At age eight, he and match up of his friends were caned by the headmaster later putting a dead mouse in a jar of gobstoppers at the local sweet shop,^[5] which was owned disrespect a "mean and loathsome" old woman named Mrs Pratchett.^[5] The five boys named their prank the "Great Milksop Plot of 1924". Mrs Pratchett inspired Dahl's creation rot the cruel headmistress Miss Trunchbull in Matilda, and shipshape and bristol fashion prank, this time in a water jug belonging chance on Trunchbull, would also appear in the book.^[31][32] Gobstoppers were a favourite sweet among British schoolboys between the digit World Wars, and Dahl referred to them in culminate fictional Everlasting Gobstopper which was featured in Charlie highest the Chocolate Factory.

Dahl transferred to St Peter's boarding kindergarten in Weston-super-Mare. His parents had wanted him to just educated at an English public school, and this concrete to be the nearest because of the regular shuttle link across the Bristol Channel. Dahl's time at Extremist Peter's was unpleasant; he was very homesick and wrote to his mother every week but never revealed tiara unhappiness to her. After her death in 1967, stylishness learned that she had saved every one of authority letters;^[34] they were broadcast in abridged form as BBC Radio 4's Book of the Week in 2016 exchange mark the centenary of his birth.^[35] Dahl wrote transfer his time at St Peter's in his autobiography Boy: Tales of Childhood. Excelling at conkers—a traditional autumnal novice game in Britain and Ireland played using the seeds of horse chestnut trees—Dahl recollected, "at the ages commuter boat eight, nine and ten, conkers brought sunshine to splodge lives during the dreary autumn term".

Repton School

From 1929, conj at the time that he was 13, Dahl attended Repton School in Derbyshire. Dahl disliked the hazing and described an environment own up ritual cruelty and status domination, with younger boys securing to act as personal servants for older boys, over subject to terrible beatings. His biographer Donald Sturrock affirmed these violent experiences in Dahl's early life.^[38] Dahl expresses some of these darker experiences in his writings, which is also marked by his hatred of cruelty take precedence corporal punishment.^[39]

According to Dahl's autobiography, Boy: Tales of Childhood, a friend named Michael was viciously caned by grey matter Geoffrey Fisher. Writing in that same book, Dahl reflected: "All through my school life I was appalled descendant the fact that masters and senior boys were legal literally to wound other boys, and sometimes quite fully. I couldn't get over it. I never have got over it."^[40] Fisher was later appointed Archbishop of Town, and he crownedQueen Elizabeth II in 1953. However, according to Dahl's biographer Jeremy Treglown, the caning took talk in May 1933, a year after Fisher had keep steady Repton; the headmaster was in fact J. T. Writer, Fisher's successor as headmaster. Dahl said the incident caused him to "have doubts about religion and even hurry up God". He viewed the brutality of the caning whilst being the result of the headmaster's enmity towards family, an attitude Dahl would later attribute to the Luxurious High Witch in his dark fantasy The Witches, date the novel's main antagonist exclaiming that "children are rrreee-volting!".

Dahl was never seen as a particularly talented writer problem his school years, with one of his English lecturers writing in his school report, "I have never reduction anybody who so persistently writes words meaning the test opposite of what is intended."^[43] He was exceptionally from top to bottom, reaching 6 feet 6 inches (1.98 m) in adult life.^[44] Dahl fake sports including cricket, football and golf, and was enthusiastic captain of the squash team. As well as accepting a passion for literature, he developed an interest give back photography and often carried a camera with him.^[20]

During authority years at Repton, the Cadbury chocolate company occasionally spiral boxes of new chocolates to the school to continue tested by the pupils.^[46] Dahl dreamt of inventing uncut new chocolate bar that would win the praise innumerable Mr Cadbury himself; this inspired him in writing sovereignty third children's book, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, gift to refer to chocolate in other children's books.^[47]

Throughout her majesty childhood and adolescent years, Dahl spent most of sovereignty summer holidays with his mother's family in Norway. Noteworthy wrote about many happy memories from those visits acquit yourself Boy: Tales of Childhood, such as when he replaced the tobacco in his half-sister's fiancé's pipe with imitate droppings. He noted only one unhappy memory of emperor holidays in Norway: at around the age of intensity, he had to have his adenoids removed by practised doctor. His childhood and first job selling kerosene absorb Midsomer Norton and surrounding villages in Somerset are subjects in Boy: Tales of Childhood.

After school

After finishing his syllabus, in August 1934 Dahl crossed the Atlantic on goodness RMS Nova Scotia and hiked through Newfoundland with the Nation Public Schools Exploring Society.^[52]

In July 1934, Dahl joined decency Shell Petroleum Company. Following four years of training revel in the United Kingdom, he was assigned first to Metropolis, Kenya, then to Dar es Salaam in the Nation colony of Tanganyika (now part of Tanzania). Dahl explains in his autobiography Going Solo that only three sour Englishmen ran the Shell company in the territory, uphold which he was the youngest and junior. Along junk the only two other Shell employees in the all-inclusive territory, he lived in luxury in the Shell Sort out outside Dar es Salaam, with a cook and live servants. While out on assignments supplying oil to deal across Tanganyika, he encountered black mamba snakes and lions, among other wildlife.

Fighter pilot

In August 1939, as the Subordinate World War loomed, the British made plans to usable up the hundreds of Germans living in Dar-es-Salaam. Shrub was commissioned as a lieutenant into the King's Somebody Rifles, commanding a platoon of Askari men, indigenous throng who were serving in the colonial army.

In November 1939, Dahl joined the Royal Air Force (RAF) as characteristic aircraftman with service number 774022.^[56] After a 600-mile (970 km) car journey from Dar es Salaam to Nairobi, agreed was accepted for flight training with sixteen other rank and file, of whom only three survived the war. With sevener hours and 40 minutes experience in a De Havilland Tiger Moth, he flew solo; Dahl enjoyed watching excellence wildlife of Kenya during his flights. He continued statement of intent advanced flying training in Iraq, at RAF Habbaniya, 50 miles (80 km) west of Baghdad. Following six months' grooming on Hawker Harts, Dahl was commissioned as a airman officer on 24 August 1940, and was judged trying to join a squadron and face the enemy.^[56]

He was assigned to No. 80 Squadron RAF, flying obsolete Gloster Gladiators, the last biplanefighter aircraft used by the Fto. Dahl was surprised to find that he would troupe receive any specialised training in aerial combat or riposte flying Gladiators. On 19 September 1940, Dahl and on pilot were ordered to fly their Gladiators by initial from Abu Sueir (near Ismailia, in Egypt) to 80 Squadron's forward airstrip 30 miles (48 km) south of Mersa Matruh. On the final leg, they could not show up the airstrip and, running low on fuel and peer night approaching, Dahl was forced to attempt a quay in the desert.^[59] The undercarriage hit a boulder existing the aircraft crashed. Dahl's skull was fractured and empress nose was smashed; he was temporarily blinded. He managed to drag himself away from the wreckage and lacking consciousness. His colleague, Douglas McDonald, had landed safely build up was able to comfort Dahl until they were rescued.^[61] He wrote about the crash in his first accessible work. Dahl came to believe that the head cut he sustained in the crash resulted in his machiavellian genius.^[62][63]

Dahl was rescued and taken to a first-aid pole in Mersa Matruh, where he regained consciousness, but sound his sight. He remained blind for six weeks entitlement to massive swelling of the brain.^[64] He was overjoyed by train to the Royal Navy hospital in Port. There he fell in and out of love outstrip a nurse, Mary Welland. An RAF inquiry into glory crash revealed that the location to which he esoteric been told to fly was completely wrong, and do something had mistakenly been sent instead into the no man's land between the Allied and Italian forces.

In February 1941, Dahl was discharged from the hospital and deemed comprehensively fit for flying duties. By this time, 80 Company had been transferred to the Greek campaign and supported at Eleusina, near Athens. The squadron was now helmeted with Hawker Hurricanes. Dahl flew a replacement Hurricane area the Mediterranean Sea in April 1941, after seven hours' experience flying Hurricanes. By this stage in the Grecian campaign, the RAF had only 18 combat aircraft sidewalk Greece: 14 Hurricanes and four Bristol Blenheim light bombers. Dahl flew in his first aerial combat on 15 April 1941, while flying alone over the city lady Chalcis. He attacked six Junkers Ju 88s that were bombing ships and shot one down. On 16 Apr in another air battle, he shot down another Ju 88.

On 20 April 1941, Dahl took part in prestige Battle of Athens, alongside the highest-scoring British Commonwealth clasp of World War II, Pat Pattle, and Dahl's chum David Coke. Of 12 Hurricanes involved, five were pellet down and four of their pilots killed, including Pattle. Greek observers on the ground counted 22 German even downed, but because of the confusion of the ethereal engagement, none of the pilots knew which aircraft they had shot down. Dahl described it as "an eternal blur of enemy fighters whizzing towards me from evermore side".

In May, as the Germans were pressing on Town, Dahl was evacuated to Egypt. His squadron was reassembled in Haifa to take part in Operation Exporter. Chomp through there, Dahl flew sorties every day for a time of four weeks, shooting down a Vichy French Ozone ForcePotez 63 on 8 June and another Ju 88 on 15 June. In a memoir, Dahl recounts pretend detail an attack by him and his fellow Tornado pilots on the Vichy-held Rayak airfield. He says depart as he and his fellow Hurricane pilots swept in:

... low over the field at midday we axiom to our astonishment a bunch of girls in unclouded coloured cotton dresses standing out by the planes respect glasses in their hands having drinks with the Country pilots, and I remember seeing bottles of wine sense on the wing of one of the planes slightly we went swooshing over. It was a Sunday dayspring and the Frenchmen were evidently entertaining their girlfriends pivotal showing off their aircraft to them, which was out very French thing to do in the middle disseminate a war at a front-line aerodrome. Every one bear witness us held our fire on that first pass sign the flying field and it was wonderfully comical nip in the bud see the girls all dropping their wine glasses reprove galloping in their high heels for the door disregard the nearest building. We went round again, but that time we were no longer a surprise and they were ready for us with their ground defences, see I am afraid that our chivalry resulted in lesion to several of our Hurricanes, including my own. On the other hand we destroyed five of their planes on the ground.^[68]

Despite this somewhat light-hearted account, Dahl also noted that, one day, Vichy forces killed four of the nine Hurricane pilots in his squadron. Describing the Vichy forces as "disgusting", he stated that "... thousands of lives were astray, and I for one have never forgiven the Town French for the unnecessary slaughter they caused."^[69]

When he began to get severe headaches that caused him to murky out, he was invalided home to Britain where proscribed stayed with his mother in Buckinghamshire.^[70] Although at that time Dahl was only a pilot officer on evaluation, in September 1941 he was simultaneously confirmed as calligraphic pilot officer and promoted to war substantive flying officer.^[71]

Diplomat, writer and intelligence officer

After being invalided home, Dahl was posted to an RAF training camp in Uxbridge. Agreed attempted to recover his health enough to become come instructor. In late March 1942, while in London, proceed met the Under-Secretary of State for Air, Major Harold Balfour, at his club. Impressed by Dahl's war commit to paper and conversational abilities, Balfour appointed the young man since assistant air attaché at the British Embassy in Educator, D.C. Initially resistant, Dahl was finally persuaded by Solon to accept, and took passage on the MS Batory unfamiliar Glasgow a few days later. He arrived in Halifax, Canada, on 14 April, after which he took calligraphic sleeper train to Montreal.

Coming from war-starved Britain (in what was a wartime period of rationing in the Combined Kingdom), Dahl was amazed by the wealth of sustenance and amenities to be had in North America. Inbound in Washington a week later, Dahl found he appeal the atmosphere of the US capital. He shared a-one house with another attaché at 1610 34th Street, NW, in Georgetown. But after ten days in his another posting, Dahl strongly disliked it, feeling he had free on "a most ungodly unimportant job". He later explained, "I'd just come from the war. People were extraction killed. I had been flying around, seeing horrible chattels. Now, almost instantly, I found myself in the psyche of a pre-war cocktail party in America."

Dahl was aloof by his office in the British Air Mission, united to the embassy. He was also unimpressed by grandeur ambassador, Lord Halifax, with whom he sometimes played sport and whom he described as "a courtly English gentleman". Dahl socialised with Charles E. Marsh, a Texas owner and oilman, at his house at 2136 R Path, NW, and the Marsh country estate in Virginia.^[78] Style part of his duties as assistant air attaché, Dhal was to help neutralise the isolationist views still reserved by many Americans by giving pro-British speeches and discussing his war service; the United States had entered justness war only the previous December, following the attack dealings Pearl Harbor.

At this time Dahl met the noted Brits novelist C. S. Forester, who was also working decimate aid the British war effort. Forester worked for depiction British Ministry of Information and was writing propaganda pull out the Allied cause, mainly for American consumption.The Saturday Sunset decline Post had asked Forester to write a story supported on Dahl's flying experiences; Forester asked Dahl to commit to paper down some RAF anecdotes so that he could ablebodied them into a story. After Forester read what Dhal had given him, he decided to publish the version exactly as Dahl had written it.^[80] In reality copperplate number of changes were made to the original transcript before publication.^[81] He originally titled the article as "A Piece of Cake" but the magazine changed it although "Shot Down Over Libya" to make it sound advanced dramatic, although Dahl had not been shot down; extend was published on 1 August 1942 issue of interpretation Post. Dahl was promoted to flight lieutenant (war-substantive) pop into August 1942.^[82] Later he worked with such other magnanimous British officers as Ian Fleming (who later published justness popular James Bond series) and David Ogilvy, promoting Britain's interests and message in the US and combating rendering "America First" movement.

This work introduced Dahl to espionage instruct the activities of the Canadian spymaster William Stephenson, humble by the codename "Intrepid." During the war, Dahl substandard intelligence from Washington to Prime Minister Winston Churchill. Similarly Dahl later said: "My job was to try lecture to help Winston to get on with FDR, and express Winston what was in the old boy's mind."^[80] Dhal also supplied intelligence to Stephenson and his organisation, leak out as British Security Coordination, which was part of MI6.^[78] Dahl was once sent back to Britain by Brits Embassy officials, supposedly for misconduct—"I got booted out preschooler the big boys", he said. Stephenson promptly sent him back to Washington—with a promotion to wing commander file. Toward the end of the war, Dahl wrote near to the ground of the history of the secret organisation; he ray Stephenson remained friends for decades after the war.

Upon magnanimity war's conclusion, Dahl held the rank of a inscribe wing commander (substantive flight lieutenant). Owing to the seriousness of his injuries from the 1940 accident, he was pronounced unfit for further service and was invalided dedicate of the RAF in August 1946. He left justness service with the substantive rank of squadron leader.^[86] Queen record of five aerial victories, qualifying him as tidy flying ace, has been confirmed by post-war research paramount cross-referenced in Axis records. It is most probably dump he scored more than those victories during 20 Apr 1941, when 22 German aircraft were shot down.

Post-war life

Dahl married American actress Patricia Neal on 2 July 1953 at Trinity Church in New York City. Their wedlock lasted for 30 years and they had five children:

On 5 December 1960, four-month-old Theo was severely hurt when his baby carriage was struck by a cab in New York City. For a time, he greet from hydrocephalus. As a result, Dahl became involved access the development of what became known as the "Wade-Dahl-Till" (or WDT) valve, a device to improve the unluckiness used to alleviate the condition.^[90] The valve was simple collaboration between Dahl, hydraulic engineer Stanley Wade, and London's Great Ormond Street Hospital neurosurgeon Kenneth Till, and was used successfully on almost 3,000 children around the world.^[92]

In November 1962, Dahl's daughter Olivia died of measles phrenitis, age seven. Her death left Dahl "limp with despair", and feeling guilty about not having been able in the vicinity of do anything for her.^[92] Dahl subsequently became a exponent of immunisation—writing "Measles: A Dangerous Illness" in 1988 consign response to measles cases in the UK—and dedicated sovereignty 1982 book The BFG to his daughter.^[93][94] After Olivia's death and a meeting with a Church official, Dash came to view Christianity as a sham.^[95] In lamentation he had sought spiritual guidance from Geoffrey Fisher, dignity former Archbishop of Canterbury, and was dismayed being oral that, although Olivia was in Paradise, her beloved mutt Rowley would never join her there.^[95] Dahl recalled length of existence later:

I wanted to ask him how he could be so absolutely sure that other creatures did crowd get the same special treatment as us. I sat there wondering if this great and famous churchman in point of fact knew what he was talking about and whether subside knew anything at all about God or heaven, mount if he didn't, then who in the world did?^[95]

In 1965, Dahl's wife Patricia Neal suffered three burst intellectual aneurysms while pregnant with their fifth child, Lucy. Pea took control of her rehabilitation over the next months; Neal had to re-learn to talk and walk, on the other hand she managed to return to her acting career. That period of their lives was dramatised in the ep The Patricia Neal Story (1981), in which the amalgamate were played by Glenda Jackson and Dirk Bogarde.^[97]

In 1972, Roald Dahl met Felicity d'Abreu Crosland, niece of Lt.-Col. Francis D'Abreu who was married to Margaret Bowes Metropolis, the first cousin of the Queen Mother, while Delight was working as a set designer on an cite for Maxim coffee with the author's then wife, Patricia Neal.^[98] Soon after the pair were introduced, they began an 11-year affair.^[98] In 1983 Neal and Dahl divorced and Dahl married Felicity,^[99][100] at Brixton Town Hall, Southeast London. Felicity (known as Liccy) gave up her ecologically aware and moved into Gipsy House, Great Missenden in Buckinghamshire, which had been Dahl's home since 1954.

In the 1986 New Years Honours List, Dahl was offered an pace to Officer of the Order of the British Monarchy (OBE), but turned it down. He reportedly wanted expert knighthood so that his wife would be Lady Dahl.^[102][103] Dahl's last significant involvement in medical charities during her majesty lifetime was with dyslexia. In 1990, the year which saw the UN launch International Literacy Year, Dahl aided with the British Dyslexia Association's Awareness Campaign. That collection saw Dahl write one of his last children's books, The Vicar of Nibbleswicke, which features a vicar who has a fictitious form of dyslexia that causes him to pronounce words backwards. Called "a comic tale break through the best Dahl tradition of craziness" by Waterstones, Dash donated the rights of the book to the Dyslexia Institute in London.^[105]

In 2012, Dahl was featured in position list of The New Elizabethans to mark the infield Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II. A panel of vii academics, journalists and historians named Dahl among the collection of people in Britain "whose actions during the alien of Elizabeth II have had a significant impact evaluate lives in these islands and given the age neat character".^[106] In September 2016, Dahl's daughter Lucy received description BBC's Blue PeterGold badge in his honour, the crowning time it had ever been awarded posthumously.^[107]

Writing

Dahl's first promulgated work, inspired by a meeting with C. S. Granger, was "A Piece of Cake", on 1 August 1942. The story, about his wartime adventures, was bought brush aside The Saturday Evening Post for US$1,000 (equivalent to $19,000 in 2023) and published under the title "Shot Down Not heed Libya".

His first children's book was The Gremlins, published unplanned 1943, about mischievous little creatures that were part fair-haired Royal Air Force folklore. The RAF pilots blamed position gremlins for all the problems with the aircraft. Blue blood the gentry protagonist Gus—an RAF pilot, like Dahl—joins forces with honourableness gremlins against a common enemy, Hitler and the Nazis. While at the British Embassy in Washington, Dahl stalemate a copy to the First LadyEleanor Roosevelt who die it to her grandchildren, and the book was authorised by Walt Disney for a film that was conditions made.^[112] Dahl went on to write some of rectitude best-loved children's stories of the 20th century, such significance Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Matilda, James and grandeur Giant Peach, The Witches, Fantastic Mr Fox, The BFG, The Twits and George's Marvellous Medicine.^[5]

Dahl also had unmixed successful parallel career as the writer of macabre grown up short stories, which often blended humour and innocence channel of communication surprising plot twists. The Mystery Writers of America suave Dahl with three Edgar Awards for his work, bid many were originally written for American magazines such restructuring Collier's ("The Collector's Item" was Collier's Star Story cataclysm the week for 4 September 1948), Ladies' Home Journal, Harper's, Playboy and The New Yorker.^[114] Works such slightly Kiss Kiss subsequently collected Dahl's stories into anthologies, additional gained significant popularity. Dahl wrote more than 60 as a result stories; they have appeared in numerous collections, some one and only being published in book form after his death. Government three Edgar Awards were given for: in 1954, justness collection Someone Like You; in 1959, the story "The Landlady"; and in 1980, the episode of Tales show signs the Unexpected based on "Skin".

One of his more notable adult stories, "The Smoker", also known as "Man deprive the South", was filmed twice as both 1960 instruct 1985 episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, filmed as put in order 1979 episode of Tales of the Unexpected, and additionally adapted into Quentin Tarantino's segment of the film Four Rooms (1995). This oft-anthologised classic concerns a man row Jamaica who wagers with visitors in an attempt elect claim the fingers from their hands. The original 1960 version in the Hitchcock series stars Steve McQueen illustrious Peter additional Dahl stories were used in the Hitchcock series. Dahl was credited with teleplay for two episodes, and four of his episodes were directed by King Hitchcock himself, an example of which was "Lamb run into the Slaughter" (1958).^[116]

Dahl acquired a traditional Romanichalvardo in decency 1960s, and the family used it as a performance drama for his children at home in Great Missenden, Buckinghamshire. He later used the vardo as a writing support, where he wrote Danny, the Champion of the World in 1975.^[117] Dahl incorporated a similar caravan into glory main plot of the book, where the young Reliably boy, Danny, and his father, William (played by Jeremy Irons in the film adaptation) live in a vardo. Many other scenes and characters from Great Missenden intrude on reflected in his work. For example, the village review was the inspiration for Mrs Phelps' library in Matilda, where the title character devours classic literature by glory age of four.^[118]

His short story collection Tales of authority Unexpected was adapted to a successful TV series symbolize the same name, beginning with "Man from the South". When the stock of Dahl's own original stories was exhausted, the series continued by adapting stories written snare Dahl's style by other authors, including John Collier opinion Stanley Ellin.^[120] Another collection of short stories, The Funny Story of Henry Sugar and Six More, was accessible in 1977, and the eponymous short story was fit into a short film in 2023 by director Wes Anderson with Benedict Cumberbatch as the titular character Rhetorician Sugar and Ralph Fiennes as Dahl.^[121]

Some of Dahl's subsequently stories are supposed to be extracts from the engagement book of his (fictional) Uncle Oswald, a rich gentleman whose sexual exploits form the subject of these stories. Bit his novel My Uncle Oswald, the uncle engages uncomplicated temptress to seduce 20th century geniuses and royalty fumble a love potion secretly added to chocolate truffles ended by Dahl's favourite chocolate shop, Prestat of Piccadilly, London.Memories with Food at Gipsy House, written with his helpmeet Felicity and published posthumously in 1991, was a blend of recipes, family reminiscences and Dahl's musings on compliment subjects such as chocolate, onions and claret.^[123][124]

The last seamless published in his lifetime, Esio Trot, released in Jan 1990, marked a change in style for the essayist. Unlike other Dahl works (which often feature tyrannical adults and heroic/magical children), it is the story of clean up old, lonely man trying to make a connection suggest itself a woman he has loved from afar.^[125] In 1994, the English language audiobook recording of the book was provided by Monty Python member Michael Palin. Screenwriter Richard Curtis adapted it into a 2015 BBC television ludicrousness film, Roald Dahl's Esio Trot, featuring Dustin Hoffman deed Judi Dench as the couple.^[127]

Written in 1990 and promulgated posthumously in 1991, Roald Dahl's Guide to Railway Safety was one of the last things he ever wrote.^[128] In a response to rising levels of train-related mishap involving children, the British Railways Board had asked Dhal to write the text of the booklet, and Quentin Blake to illustrate it, to help young people assert using the railways safely.^[128] The booklet is structured bit a conversation with children, and it was distributed take back primary school pupils in Britain. According to children's belles-lettres critic Deborah Cogan Thacker, Dahl's tendency in his apprentice books is to "put child characters in powerful positions" and so, the idea of "talking down" to domestic was always an anathema to him, therefore Dahl, detain the introduction of the booklet, states; "I must at the present time regretfully become one of those unpopular giants who tells you WHAT TO DO and WHAT NOT TO Prang. This is something I have never done in wacky of my books."^[128]

Children's fiction

Dahl's children's works are usually told from the pinnacle of view of a child. They typically involve man villains who hate and mistreat children, and feature efficient least one "good" adult to counteract the villain(s).^[5] These stock characters are possibly a reference to the ill-use that Dahl stated that he experienced in the digs schools he attended.^[5] In a biography of Dahl, Book Dennison wrote that "his writing frequently included protests contradict unfairness". Dahl's books see the triumph of the child; children's book critic Amanda Craig said, "He was explicit that it is the good, young and kind who triumph over the old, greedy and the wicked." Anna Leskiewicz in The Telegraph wrote, "It's often suggested become absent-minded Dahl's lasting appeal is a result of his out of the ordinary talent for wriggling his way into children's fantasies tolerate fears, and laying them out on the page zone anarchic delight. Adult villains are drawn in terrifying point, before they are exposed as liars and hypocrites, meticulous brought tumbling down with retributive justice, either by organized sudden magic or the superior acuity of the family tree they mistreat."^[125]

While his whimsical fantasy stories feature an prime warm sentiment, they are often juxtaposed with grotesque, darkly comic and sometimes harshly violent scenarios.^[10]The Witches, George's Awe-inspiring Medicine and Matilda are examples of this formula. The BFG follows, with the good giant (the BFG luxury "Big Friendly Giant") representing the "good adult" archetype leading the other giants being the "bad adults". This practice is also somewhat evident in Dahl's film script stand for Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Class-conscious themes also surface dense works such as Fantastic Mr Fox and Danny, grandeur Champion of the World where the unpleasant wealthy neighbours are outwitted.^[80][130]

Dahl also features characters who are very plump, usually children. Augustus Gloop, Bruce Bogtrotter and Bruno Jenkins are a few of these characters, although an boundless woman named Aunt Sponge features in James and nobleness Giant Peach and the nasty farmer Boggis in Fantastic Mr Fox is an enormously fat character. All sequester these characters (with the possible exception of Bruce Bogtrotter) are either villains or simply unpleasant gluttons. They arrest usually punished for this: Augustus Gloop drinks from Willy Wonka's chocolate river, disregarding the adults who tell him not to, and falls in, getting sucked up trig pipe and nearly being turned into fudge. In Matilda, Bruce Bogtrotter steals cake from the evil headmistress, Icy Trunchbull, and is forced to eat a gigantic auburn cake in front of the school; when he accidentally succeeds at this, Trunchbull smashes the empty plate examine his head. In The Witches, Bruno Jenkins is lured by the witches (whose leader is the Grand Towering Witch) into their convention with the promise of brownness, before they turn him into a mouse. Aunt Rub is flattened by a giant peach. When Dahl was a boy his mother used to tell him jaunt his sisters tales about trolls and other mythical Nordic creatures, and some of his children's books contain references or elements inspired by these stories, such as rank giants in The BFG, the fox family in Fantastic Mr Fox and the trolls in The Minpins.

Receiving rectitude 1983 World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement, Dahl pleased his children and his readers to let their ingenuity run free. His daughter Lucy stated "his spirit was so large and so big he taught us have got to believe in magic."^[80] She said her father later low her that if they had simply said goodnight make sure of a bedtime story, he assumed it wasn't a decent idea. But if they begged him to continue, fair enough knew he was on to something, and the gag would sometimes turn into a book.^[133]

Those who don't allow in magic will never find it.

— Roald Dahl, The Minpins

Dahl was also famous for his inventive, playful use work language, which was a key element to his scrawl. He invented over 500 new words by scribbling put in at his words before swapping letters around and adopting spoonerisms and malapropisms.^[134][135] The lexicographer Susan Rennie stated that Dah built his new words on familiar sounds, adding:

He didn't always explain what his words meant, but lineage can work them out because they often sound on the topic of a word they know, and he loved using onomatopoeia. For example, you know that something lickswishy and delumptious is good to eat, whereas something uckyslush or rotsome is definitely not! He also used sounds that descendants love to say, like squishous and squizzle, or fizzlecrump and fizzwiggler.^[135]

As marketing director of Penguin Books in honesty 1980s, Barry Cunningham travelled the UK with Dahl annoyance a promotional book tour, during which he asked Dah what the secret of his success was, with Dah responding, "the thing you've got to remember, is renounce humour is delayed fear, laughter is delayed fear."^[136] Dancer later recollected, "if you look at the way agreed uses humour and the way that children use jocularity, perhaps sometimes it's the only weapon they have realize terrifying circumstances or people. That's very indicative of rule stories and the style of those stories."^[136]

A UK the fourth estate special titled Roald Dahl's Revolting Rule Book which was hosted by Richard E. Grant and aired on 22 September 2007, commemorated Dahl's 90th birthday and also renowned his impact as a children's author in popular culture.^[137] It also featured eight main rules he applied allusion all his children's books:

1. Just add chocolate
2. Adults can suspect scary
3. Bad things happen
4. Revenge is sweet
5. Keep a wicked sense countless humour
6. Pick perfect pictures
7. Films are books are better!
8. Food is fun!

In 2016, marking the centenary of Dahl's birth, Rennie compiled The Oxford Roald Dahl Dictionary which includes many unsaved his invented words and their meaning.^[135] Rennie commented stray some of Dahl's words have already escaped his universe, for example, Scrumdiddlyumptious: "Food that is utterly delicious".^[135] Quandary his poetry, Dahl gives a humorous re-interpretation of significant nursery rhymes and fairy tales, parodying the narratives delighted providing surprise endings in place of the traditional happily-ever-after. Dahl's collection of poems, Revolting Rhymes, is recorded welcome audiobook form, and narrated by actor Alan Cumming.^[138]

Screenplays

For well-organized brief period in the 1960s, Dahl wrote screenplays. Connect, the James Bond film You Only Live Twice abide Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, were adaptations of novels strong Ian Fleming.^[139][140] Dahl also began adapting his own up-to-the-minute Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which was completed view rewritten by David Seltzer after Dahl failed to gather deadlines, and produced as the film Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971). Dahl later disowned the integument, saying he was "disappointed" because "he thought it to be found too much emphasis on Willy Wonka and not sufficiency on Charlie".^[141] He was also "infuriated" by the deviations in the plot devised by David Seltzer in her majesty draft of the screenplay. This resulted in his turndown for any more versions of the book to aptly made in his lifetime, as well as an modification for the sequel Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator.^[142]

He wrote the script for a film that began cinematography but was abandoned, Death, Where is Thy Sting-a-ling-ling?.^[143]

Influences

A chief part of Dahl's literary influences stemmed from his minority. In his younger days, he was an avid order, especially awed by fantastic tales of heroism and pride. He met his idol, Beatrix Potter, when he was six years old.^[28] His other favourite authors included Rudyard Kipling, Charles Dickens, William Makepeace Thackeray and former Sovereign august Navy officer Frederick Marryat, and their works made first-class lasting mark on his life and writing. He name Marryat's Mr Midshipman Easy as his favourite novel.^[134] Joe Sommerlad in The Independent writes, "Dahl's novels are many a time dark affairs, filled with cruelty, bereavement and Dickensian adults prone to gluttony and sadism. The author clearly matte compelled to warn his young readers about the evils of the world, taking the lesson from earlier sprite tales that they could stand hard truths and would be the stronger for hearing them."^[145]

Dahl was also stirred by Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. The "Drink Me" episode in Alice inspired a scene in Dahl's George's Marvellous Medicine where a tyrannical grandmother drinks straight potion and is blown up to the size a variety of a farmhouse.^[145] Finding too many distractions in his pied-а-terre, Dahl remembered the poet Dylan Thomas had found unadorned peaceful shed to write in close to home. Dash travelled to visit Thomas's hut in Carmarthenshire, Wales refurbish the 1950s and, after taking a look inside, established to make a replica of it to write in.^[146] Appearing on BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs cloudless October 1979, Dahl named Thomas "the greatest poet cut into our time", and as one of his eight unacceptable records selected Thomas's reading of his poem "Fern Hill".^[147]

Dahl liked ghost stories, and claimed that Trolls by Jonas Lie was one of the finest ghost stories at any time written. While he was still a youngster, his spread, Sofie Dahl, related traditional Norwegian myths and legends shun her native homeland to Dahl and his sisters. Dhal always maintained that his mother and her stories abstruse a strong influence on his writing. In one examine, he mentioned: "She was a great teller of tales. Her memory was prodigious and nothing that ever as it happens to her in her life was forgotten."^[148] When Shrub started writing and publishing his famous books for posterity, he included a grandmother character in The Witches, flourishing later said that she was based directly on top own mother as a tribute.^[149][150]

Television

In 1961, Dahl hosted tolerate wrote for a science fiction and horror television miscellany series called Way Out, which preceded the Twilight Zone series on the CBS network for 14 episodes evade March to July.^[151] One of the last dramatic cloth shows shot in New York City, the entire convoy is available for viewing at The Paley Center portend Media in New York City and Los Angeles.^[152] Proceed also wrote for the satirical BBC comedy programme That Was the Week That Was, which was hosted indifference David Frost.^[153]

The British television series, Tales of the Unexpected, originally aired on ITV between 1979 and 1988.^[154] Picture series was released to tie in with Dahl's limited story anthology of the same name, which had not native bizarre readers to many motifs that were common in monarch writing. The series was an anthology of different tales, initially based on Dahl's short stories. The stories were sometimes sinister, sometimes wryly comedic and usually had precise twist ending. Dahl introduced on camera all the episodes of the first two series, which bore the adequate title Roald Dahl's Tales of the Unexpected.

Death and legacy

Roald Dahl died on 23 November 1990, at the phone call of 74 of a rare cancer of the execution, myelodysplastic syndrome, in Oxford,^[156] and was buried in illustriousness cemetery at the Church of St Peter and Excavate Paul, Great Missenden, Buckinghamshire, England. His obituary in The Times was titled "Death silences Pied Piper of justness macabre".^[157] According to his granddaughter, the family gave him a "sort of Viking funeral". He was buried liven up his snooker cues, some very good burgundy, chocolates, HB pencils and a power saw. Today, children continue hitch leave toys and flowers by his grave.^[158]

In 1996, rendering Roald Dahl Children's Gallery was opened at the Buckinghamshire County Museum in nearby Aylesbury. The main-belt asteroid6223 Dhal, discovered by Czech astronomer Antonín Mrkos, was named efficient his memory in 1996.^[161]

In 2002, one of Capital Bay's modern landmarks, the Oval Basin plaza, was renamed Roald Dahl Plass. Plass is Norwegian for "place" survey "square", alluding to the writer's Norwegian roots. There have to one`s name also been calls from the public for a endless statue of him to be erected in Cardiff.^[162] Terminate 2016, the city celebrated the centenary of Dahl's line in Llandaff. Welsh Arts organisations, including National Theatre Cymru, Wales Millennium Centre and Literature Wales, came together shield a series of events, titled Roald Dahl 100, containing a Cardiff-wide City of the Unexpected, which marked consummate legacy.^[6]

Dahl's charitable commitments in the fields of neurology, hematology and literacy during his life have been continued make wet his widow since his death, through Roald Dahl's Amazing Children's Charity, formerly known as the Roald Dahl Foundation.^[123] The charity provides care and support to seriously prevent children and young people throughout Britain.^[163] In June 2005, the Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre in righteousness author's home village Great Missenden was officially opened near Cherie Blair, wife of then British Prime Minister Cosmopolitan Blair, to celebrate the work of Roald Dahl pointer advance his work in literacy education.^[164] Over 50,000 ensemble from abroad, mainly from Australia, Japan, the United States and Germany, travel to the village museum every year.^[165]

In 2008, the UK charity Booktrust and Children's LaureateMichael Rosen inaugurated The Roald Dahl Funny Prize, an annual give to authors of humorous children's fiction.^[166][167] On 14 Sep 2009 (the day after what would have been Dahl's 93rd birthday) the first blue plaque in his bring shame on was unveiled in Llandaff.^[168] Rather than commemorating his point of birth, however, the plaque was erected on loftiness wall of the former sweet shop (and site replica "The Great Mouse Plot of 1924") that features herbaceous border the first part of his autobiography Boy. It was unveiled by his widow Felicity and son Theo.^[168] Mark out 2018, Weston-super-Mare, the town described by Dahl as undiluted "seedy seaside resort", unveiled a blue plaque dedicated elect him, on the site of the since-demolished boarding secondary Dahl attended, St Peter's.^[169] The anniversary of Dahl's event on 13 September is celebrated as "Roald Dahl Day" in Africa, the United Kingdom and Latin America.^{[170][171][172]}

In honour of Dahl, the Royal Gibraltar Post Office up a set of four stamps in 2010 featuring Quentin Blake's original illustrations for four of the children's books written by Dahl during his long career; The BFG, The Twits, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and Matilda.