Roald Dahl was born in Wales but his first language was Norwegian as both of his parents came from Norway. Dahl’s bilingualism may have played a part in his writing. Bilingual people often have heightened awareness of language structure and vocabulary, and Dahl invented nearly 500 new words. Expressions in his books, such as the ‘golden ticket’ in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, have also made their way into everyday use.
Dahl’s work first appeared in print 1942. 2 pieces were published that year, both of which referenced his time as an RAF pilot during World War Two: Shot Down Over Libya in the US publication The Saturday Evening Post in August, and a seven-page preview of The Gremlins in the December issue of Cosmopolitan magazine. Published in full as a book the following year, The Gremlins was based on an RAF tradition of blaming malicious little creatures (gremlins) for any mechanical problems. This was Dahl’s first book for children and Walt Disney planned to make an animated film of it, although copyright issues prevented this from happening.
Dahl is probably best known for his children’s books. Titles such as James and Giant Peach, The BFG, Fantastic Mr Fox, The Witches, Matilda, Dirty Beasts and Revolting Rhymes have been hugely popular and continue to sell in very large numbers. He also wrote short stories for adults, theatre scripts, screenplays – including You only Live Twice, adapted from the novel by Ian Fleming (1908-1964) - television adaptations of his and other writers’ works, and two autobiographies, Boy: Tales of Childhood (1982) and Going Solo (1986). In total, his books have sold over 300 million copies worldwide and they have been translated into nearly 70 different languages.
The last book written by Roald Dahl was The Minpins which was published posthumously in 1991. In June 2025, Lyon & Turnbull were thrilled to handle a fantastic consignment of material relating to Roald Dahl including the full pre-publication paste-up of The Minpins by the late Ian Craig (1944-2023), which sold for £5,040 inc. premium. Also in the sale was an unprecedented collection of 30 original drawings by Dahl himself for his memoir Boy: Tales of Boyhood. The drawings were part of an archive of material relating to the publication of Boy including the publisher’s original page-layouts and correspondence. The collection revealed the transformation of Dahl’s memories into the printed form and we achieved a selling price of £23,940 inc. premium.
Illustrated: Carl Van Vechten, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
