Roald Dahl was born in Llandaff, Wales, on 13 September 1916. His parents were Norwegian and he was the only son of a second marriage. His father, Harald, and elder sister Astri died when Roald was just three years old, leaving his mother, Sofie, to raise her four children and two stepchildren.
At the age of nine, Roald was sent away to boarding school, first in Weston-super-Mare and later in Derbyshire (not far from Cadbury's chocolate factory). He suffered acutely from homesickness and his unhappy schooling was to greatly influence his writing in later life. His childhood and schooldays became the subject of his autobiography Boy.
At eigthteen, instead of going to university, he joined the Shell Petroleum Company and after two years training was sent to Dar es Salaam (in what is now Tanzania) to supply oil to customers. However, the outbreak of the Second World War saw him sign up as an aircraftman with the RAF in Nairobi: of the sixteen men who signed up, only Roald and two others were to survive the war.
He detailed his exploits in the war in a further volume of autobiography, Going Solo, which included crash-landing in no-man's-land and surviving a direct hit during the Battle of Athens. Invalided out of active service, he was transferred to Washington in 1942 as an air attache, where an opportune meeting with C. S. Forester, the writer of the Hornblower series, set him on a new path.
Roald's first piece of published writing was used to help publicize the British war effort in America. Appearing anonymously in the Saturday Evening Post in 1942, 'Shot Down Over Libya' earned him $900. He published several more pieces for the paper, many of which were fictional tales, and these were eventually collected together and published as Over to You.
Later stories appeared in the New Yorker, Harpers and Atlantic Monthly. They were widely regarded and he won the prestigious Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America three times. In 1953 he married the Oscar-winning actor Patricia Neal and together they had five children.
It was not until the 1960s, after he had settled with his family in Great Missenden in Buckinghamshire, that Roald began seriously to writer children's stories, publishing first James and the Giant Peach and, a few years later, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. It was not long before his stories were a worldwide success.
After he and Patricia Neal divorced, Roald married Felicity Crosland in 1983. Working to the end on new books, he died aged seventy-four on 23 November 1990.
Now, over twenty years later, Roald Dahl's legacy as a storyteller and favourite of readers around the world remains unsurpassed.
Kiss Kiss
'And it is such a pleasure, my dear, such a very great pleasure when now and again I open the door and I see someone standing there who is just exactly right.'
Eleven devious, shocking stories from the master of the unpredictable, Roald Dahl.
What could go wrong when a wife pawns the mink coat that her love gave her as a parting gift? What happens when a priceless piece of furniture is the subject of a deceitful bargain? Can a wronged woman take revenge on her dead husband?
In these dark, disturbing stories Roald Dahl explores the sinister side of human nature: the cunning, sly, selfish part of each of us that leads us into the territory of the unexpected and unsettling. Stylish, macabre and haunting, these tales will leave you with a delicious feeling of unease.
'Roald Dahl is one of the few writers I know whose work can accurately be described as addictive' Irish Times
My Uncle Oswald
'My dear, dear sir! It's a miracle! It's a wonder pill! It's ... it's the greatest invention of all time!'
Meet Uncle Oswald Hendryks Cornelius, Roald Dahl's most disgraceful and extraordinary character ...
Aside from being thoroughly debauched, stringly attractive and astonishingly wealthy, Uncle Oswald was the greatest bounder, bon vivant and fornicator of all time. In this instalment of his scorchingly frank memoirs he tells of his early career and erotic education at the hands of a number of enthusiastic teachers, of discovering the invigorating properties of the Sudanese Blister Beetle, and of the gorgeous Yasmin Howcomely, his electrifying partner in a most unusual series of thefts...
'Raunchy and cheeky entertainment'
Sunday Express
Switch Bitch
'That's right, I thought. I want her.
I lust after that woman.'
Four tales of seduction and supense told by the grand master of the short story, Roald Dahl.
Topping and tailing this collection are 'The Visitor' and 'Bitch', stories featuring Roald Dahl's notorious hedonist Oswald Hendryks Cornelius (or plain old Uncle Oswald), whose exploits are frequently as extraordinary as they are scandalous. In the middle, meanwhile, are 'The Great Switcheroo' and 'The Last Act', two stories exploring a darker side of desire and pleasure.
In the black comedies of Switch Bitch Roald Dahl brilliantly captures the ins and outs, highs and lows of sex.
'Dahl is too good a storyteller to become predictable' Daily Telegraph
The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar