After Neal suffered from multiple brain hemorrhages in the mid-1960s, Dahl stood by her through her long recovery. The couple would eventually divorce in 1983. Soon after, Dahl married Felicity Ann Crosland, his partner until his death in 1990. Death His next school, Repton, was equally distasteful to him. In Boy: Tales of Childhood (Cape, 1984), and also in several TV interviews, Dahl represented the headmaster, Godfrey Fisher (who later became Archbishop of Canterbury and crowned Queen Elizabeth II), as a sadistic flogger, but Jeremy Treglown proves clearly that Fisher had, in fact left Repton a year before the beatings described in Boy. As at 2019, Dahl's works have been translated into 63 languages and have sold more than 200million books worldwide. [18] [19] Dahl was known as “The World’s No. 1 Story-teller” due to how his books celebrate nonsense, imagination, and creativity. It is because of this that his books are still popular with children. [20] His awards for contribution to literature include the 1983 World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement, and the British Book Awards' Children's Author of the Year in 1990. In 2008 The Times placed Dahl 16th on its list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945". [21] He has been referred to by The Independent as "one of the greatest storytellers for children of the 20th century". [22] On his death in 1990, Howard considered him "one of the most widely read and influential writers of our generation". [2] Novels [ edit ] Dahl's novels

Dahl's charitable commitments in the fields of neurology, haematology and literacy during his life have been continued by his widow since his death, through Roald Dahl's Marvellous Children's Charity, formerly known as the Roald Dahl Foundation. [118] The charity provides care and support to seriously ill children and young people throughout the UK. [156] In June 2005, the Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre in the author's home village Great Missenden was officially opened by Cherie Blair, wife of UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, to celebrate the work of Roald Dahl and advance his work in literacy education. [157] Over 50,000 visitors from abroad, mainly from Australia, Japan, the United States and Germany, travel to the village museum every year. [158] Matilda the Musical has been shown in the West End (pictured) since November 2011, and on Broadway between 2013 and 2017 Lusting for yet more adventure, in 1939, Dahl joined the Royal Air Force. After training in Nairobi, Kenya, he became a World War II fighter pilot. While serving in the Mediterranean, Dahl crash-landed in Alexandria, Egypt. The plane crash left him with serious injuries to his skull, spine and hip. Following a recovery that included a hip replacement and two spinal surgeries, Dahl was transferred to Washington, D.C., where he became an assistant air attaché. BooksDahl was born in Wales to affluent Norwegian immigrant parents, and spent most of his life in England. He served in the Royal Air Force (RAF) during the Second World War. He became a fighter pilot and, subsequently, an intelligence officer, rising to the rank of acting wing commander. He rose to prominence as a writer in the 1940s with works for children and for adults, and he became one of the world's best-selling authors. [6] [7] His awards for contribution to literature include the 1983 World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement and the British Book Awards' Children's Author of the Year in 1990. In 2008, The Times placed Dahl 16th on its list of "The 50 Greatest British Writers Since 1945". [8] In 2021, Forbes ranked him the top-earning dead celebrity. [9] Dahl later transferred to Repton, a private school with a reputation for academic excellence. He resented the rules at Repton; while there, the lively and imaginative youngster was restless and ached for adventure. During his years at Repton, the Cadbury chocolate company occasionally sent boxes of new chocolates to the school to be tested by the pupils. [46] Dahl dreamt of inventing a new chocolate bar that would win the praise of Mr Cadbury himself; this inspired him in writing his third children's book, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (1964), and to refer to chocolate in other children's books. [47] A middle-aged New York widow, Anna Cooper, contemplates suicide after losing her dear husband, Ed, in a car accident. However, she starts to see a ray of light after helping at her friend’s adoption agency. After feeling vulnerable when visiting Dallas, Texas, on her own for agency business, she remembers that her high school sweetheart, Dr. Conrad Kreuger, lives in the city. The pair had been young lovers, before Anna left Conrad to marry Ed. Appearing happy to reconnect with Anna, Conrad suggests the pair meet in the hotel bar for a drink. After meeting, Anna discovers that Conrad is now a divorced gynaecologist. Either way, the New Yorker rejected ‘William and Mary’ when it was sent to them in 1954, and again three years later. Between February 1957 and March 1959, six other stories suffered the same fate, including the repulsive ‘Pig’, in which an orphan brought up as a vegetarian is slaughtered in an abattoir; ‘Genesis and Catastrophe’, an ironical account of the birth of Hitler; and ‘Royal Jelly’, an excess of which causes a baby to turn into a bee!

The stories in Over to You were favourably compared with those of ‘Flying Officer X’ (H. E. Bates) and ‘Gunbuster’ (John Charles Austin). Noel Coward noted in his diary that they “pierced the layers of my consciousness and stirred up the very deep feelings I had during the war and have since, almost deliberately, been in danger of losing”.Walker, Richard (April 2002). "Roald Dahl: A Collector's Guide to his First Editions". The Book and Magazine Collector. No.217.

He was sent to St. Peter’s Prep School —“the greatest torture in the world”— in Weston-super-Mare, where he acquired a copy of the newly-published Can Such Things Be (Cape: ‘Traveller’s Library’, 1926). This classic collection of stories by Ambrose Bierce “profoundly fascinated and probably influenced” the young Dahl, and almost certainly sowed the seeds of his own successful career as a short-story writer. At the age of ten, he could never have guessed that the company which issued that formative book would become the main publisher of his children’s books nearly half-a-century later. As I went on, the stories became less and less realistic and more fantastic. But becoming a writer was pure fluke. Without being asked to, I doubt if I'd ever have thought of it.

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Roald Dahl was born in 1916 at Villa Marie, Fairwater Road, in Llandaff, Cardiff, Wales, to Norwegians Harald Dahl (1863–1920) and Sofie Magdalene Dahl ( née Hesselberg) (1885–1967). [14] [15] Dahl's father, a wealthy shipbroker and self-made man, had emigrated to the UK from Sarpsborg in Norway and settled in Cardiff in the 1880s with his first wife, Frenchwoman Marie Beaurin-Gresser. They had two children together (Ellen Marguerite and Louis) before her death in 1907. [16] Roald Dahl's mother belonged to a well-established Norwegian family of lawyers, priests in the state church and wealthy merchants and estate owners, and emigrated to the UK when she married his father in 1911. Dahl was named after Norwegian polar explorer Roald Amundsen. [17] His first language was Norwegian, which he spoke at home with his parents and his sisters Astri, Alfhild, and Else. The children were raised in Norway's Lutheran state church, the Church of Norway, and were baptised at the Norwegian Church, Cardiff. [18] His maternal grandmother Ellen Wallace was a granddaughter of the member of parliament Georg Wallace and a descendant of an early 18th-century Scottish immigrant to Norway. [19] Regarded as "one of the greatest storytellers for children of the 20th century", [5] Dahl was named by The Times one of the 50 greatest British writers since 1945. [8] He ranks amongst the world's best-selling fiction authors with sales estimated at over 300million, [3] [4] [7] [10] and his books have been published in 63 languages. [6] [172] In 2000 Dahl topped the list of Britain's favourite authors. [173] In 2003 four books by Dahl, led by Charlie and the Chocolate Factory at number 35, ranked among the Top 100 in The Big Read, a survey of the British public by the BBC to determine the "nation's best-loved novel" of all time. [174] In surveys of UK teachers, parents and students, Dahl is frequently ranked the best children's writer. [175] [176] He won the first three Australian BILBY Younger Readers Award; for Matilda, The BFG, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. [177] In a 2006 list for the Royal Society of L

On 20 April 1941, Dahl took part in the Battle of Athens, alongside the highest-scoring British Commonwealth ace of World War II, Pat Pattle, and Dahl's friend David Coke. Of 12 Hurricanes involved, five were shot down and four of their pilots killed, including Pattle. Greek observers on the ground counted 22 German aircraft downed, but because of the confusion of the aerial engagement, none of the pilots knew which aircraft they had shot down. Dahl described it as "an endless blur of enemy fighters whizzing towards me from every side." [63]

Dahl’s first novel (and least-known book), Sometime Never: A Fable for Supermen, was written at high speed during the summer of 1946, and first published by Scribner in the U.S. in 1948, and by Collins in Britain the following year. Selected Works: James and the Giant Peach (1961), Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (1964), Fantastic Mr. Fox (1970), The BFG (1982), Matilda (1988) After leaving Repton in 1934, Dahl joined the Shell Oil Company, and spent an exciting few years in Tanganyika. At the outbreak of war, he signed up with the Royal Air Force, receiving his training in Kenya and Iraq before being posted to the Number 80 Fighter Squadron based in the western deserts of Libya. But his literary talents were now taking a new direction, beginning in 1961 with the publication in the United States of his first major children’s book, James and the Giant Peach, which was based on a story he’d originally told his two daughters, Olivia and Tessa. The first draft of another story, ‘Charlie’s Chocolate Boy’, was completed in 1960, after the family had settled in England at Gipsy House in Great Missenden — Dahl’s home for the last thirty years of his life. If you love horror, then this is definitely a royal treat for you – especially because of Roald Dahl’s descriptive writing. The Taylor family are worried about their youngest daughter Mabel who is not eating or drinking anything. Albert – a fan of beekeeping – tries an ‘innovative’ way to help his daughter, and has miraculous results. But miracle soon turns to macabre when his wife discovers what exactly was his ‘magic cure’. livwanillustration 9. My Uncle Oswald