His Works:

After the war, Dahl returned to England and pursued a career as a writer. He sold short stories to magazines and radio stations, and published the unsuccessful Sometime Never (1948), a fantasy novel dealing with global nuclear war and its aftermath. His only other novel, My Uncle Oswald (1979), whose story told of a plot to gain and then sell the sperm of the world’s most powerful and intelligent men, did not prove to be popular. More successful was his first book of short fiction for adults, Over to You (1946), a collection of most of his wartime stories.

This was followed by Someone Like You (1953) and Kiss, Kiss (1960), two short-story collections that firmly established Dahl as a serious writer of adult fiction. Dahl’s flair for the bizarre and sometimes grotesque is evident in these ingenious, witty tales. In “Man from the South”, the poolside holiday atmosphere at a Jamaican hotel evaporates when a young American sailor accepts an unusual bet from an elderly South American man. If he wins, the sailor takes the elderly man’s new luxury car, but if he loses, the South American is ready, butcher’s knife in hand, to claim the “small ting” the sailor “can afford to give away”, namely his little finger. In “Royal Jelly” a baby girl’s steady decline is checked by her bee-keeper father’s secret experiments with the “tremendous nourishing power” of royal jelly. The mother’s pleasure at the growing baby’s sudden demands for more milk changes to horror as her husband reveals all. She suddenly thinks there is something very bee-like about him, especially those “shortish silky hairs, yellowy black” growing on his neck.

Another collection, Switch Bitch (1974), continued Dahl’s tradition of morbid, eerie tales for adults. Dahl also wrote two film scripts, You Only Live Twice (1967), and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968), both adapted from Ian Fleming novels. He achieved his greatest fame by writing for children, giving himself the financial security he had long sought.

Works for Children:

Dahl wrote 19 children’s books, including James and the Giant Peach (1961); Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (1964), which was the first of his books to be made into a film, and perhaps his most famous work; Fantastic Mr. Fox (1970); and Danny the Champion of the World (1975), which has also been made into a film. Three other highly successful works, The Twits (1980), George’s Marvellous Medicine (1980), and The BFG (1982), which won him his first literary prize, confirmed Dahl as one of the world’s most successful authors of children’s books. Films were also made of The Witches (1983) and Matilda (1988), his last full-length work.
Roald Dahl’s Revolting Rhymes (1982) exemplifies the type of dark, irreverent humour that delights his young readers but worries his critics. In his retelling of “Cinderella” Dahl claims to know the real story that is “much more gory”. His version includes a Prince who so delights in chopping off heads that Cinderella marries “a lovely feller” instead who is a “simple jam-maker by trade, / Who sold good home-made marmalade”.

In “Little Red Riding Hood” the Wolf meets his match in a little girl who doesn’t seem to know her lines. Instead of exclaiming over the disguised Wolf’s big teeth she says: “But Grandma, what a lovely great big furry coat you have on.” The Wolf tells her he will eat her up even though she was supposed to mention his big teeth first, but she is not worried:

The small girl smiles. One eyelid flickers.
She whips a pistol from her knickers.
She aims it at the creature’s head
And bang bang bang, she shoots him dead.

The next time Little Red Riding Hood is seen she no longer sports her red cloak but a “lovely furry WOLFSKIN COAT”. In “The Three Little Pigs”, Little Red Riding Hood makes another appearance when the third little pig calls in reinforcements to get rid of his pesky Wolf. She dispatches the Wolf with her pistol, but the pig’s happiness is short-lived:

Ah, Piglet, you must never trust
Young ladies from the upper crust.
For now, Miss Riding Hood, one notes,
Not only has two wolfskin coats,
But when she goes from place to place,
She has a PIGSKIN TRAVELLING CASE.

Dahl’s children’s books are filled with magic, spells and potions, and wizards who can solve every problem. His heroes overcome the tyranny of ugly and brutish bullies who might be their peers, guardians, or teachers, as well as witches and giants. One notable influence on his work is that of the Scandinavian folktale, peopled by witches, hags, and trolls, and heavily reliant on portrayals of extremes of good and evil. Dahl spent many summers as a child in the company of his predominantly female Norwegian relatives who were reportedly good storytellers.

As a result of Dahl’s success as a children’s author, his irascible nature and outspokenness came under scrutiny. He has been called a misogynist for his frequent use of female villains, in both his adult and children’s writings; a charge he has denied. He was also charged with anti-Semitism for remarks made about Israel and for his portrayal of Jewish characters in his adult work, accusations that he also denied. He died on November 23, 1990 and was buried opposite his home, Gipsy House, at Great Missenden, England.

FAMOUS WORKS OF ROALD DAHL

The Gremlins	(1943)
James and the Giant Peach	(1961)	Film: James and the Giant Peach (live-action/animated) (1996)
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory	(1964)	Films: Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971) and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005)
The Magic Finger	(1966)
Fantastic Mr Fox	(1970)	Film: Fantastic Mr. Fox (animated) (2008)
The BFG	1982)
Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator	(1973)	A sequel to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
Danny the Champion of the World	(1975)	Film: Danny the Champion of the World (TV movie) (1989)
Going Solo	(1986)
The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More	(1977)
The Witches	(1983)
George’s Marvellous Medicine	(1980)
Matilda	(1988)
The Twits	(1980)

Children’s Poetry

Adult fiction, Novels

Short story collections

Non-fiction

Plays

Film scripts

Television

SHIBIKA SURESH VIII A
ST. MARK’S SCHOOL
NEW DELHI