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About the book:
This is Dahl with the gloves off. Eleven adult stories where domestic situations curdle into something quietly monstrous most first ran in The New Yorker before being collected here in 1960.
The two to know: "The Landlady" opens the collection and is the one most people half-remember years later a young man takes a room in a guesthouse that's a little too welcoming, and the dread builds entirely through politeness. Then "William and Mary", where a controlling husband's brain is kept alive after death, eyeball attached, fully dependent on the wife he spent the marriage dominating Dahl's revenge plotting at its most structurally vicious.
Also in here: a beekeeper's parental desperation tips into body horror in "Royal Jelly," a con artist gets his comeuppance in a single perfectly timed sentence in "Parson's Pleasure," and a wife engineers a silent murder out of nothing but elevator timing in "The Way Up to Heaven."
If your only Dahl is the children's books, this collection recalibrates what he was actually capable of.
Condition:
Wear to cover as pictured.
Age related tanning to pages.
All pages well bound and intact.
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About the author:Roald Dahl (1916 to 1990)
Roald Dahl was born on September 13, 1916, in Cardiff, Wales, to Norwegian immigrant parents. After a mischievous boarding school education and serving as a fighter pilot in the Royal Air Force during World War II, he channeled his experiences into writing. These dramatic and often traumatic events, combined with a keen eye for human cruelty and absurdity, shaped a darkly satirical worldview that delighted in exposing hypocrisy, greed, and the macabre undercurrents of everyday life.
Dahl achieved early literary success with adult short stories, beginning with tales drawn from his wartime experiences. His distinctive styleelegant, twisted, and laced with black humorexcelled in the short form, delivering shocking twists and moral comeuppance. Major achievements in adult fiction include masterful collections that established him as a modern master of the macabre, alongside his enormous success in childrens literature, creating a dual legacy that spans delight and discomfort.
Influenced by Edgar Allan Poe, Saki (H. H. Munro), Guy de Maupassant, Evelyn Waugh, and the tradition of British dark humor, Dahl also drew from his own adventurous and often brutal life. He, in turn, has influenced writers of psychological thrillers, horror, and satirical fiction, including Stephen King, Clive Barker, Neil Gaiman, Ian McEwan, and authors in the twist-ending tradition such as Jeffrey Deaver and Gillian Flynn. Adjacent figures include his contemporaries like Shirley Jackson, Patricia Highsmith, and fellow practitioners of literary unease such as John Collier and Daphne du Maurier.
Recurring themes in Dahls adult fiction include revenge, greed and punishment, the dark side of human nature, marital strife, class satire, and the pleasure of watching the wicked receive their due. Major works in this vein include Someone Like You (1953), Kiss Kiss (1960), Switch Bitch (1974), Tales of the Unexpected (1979), and stories such as Lamb to the Slaughter, The Landlady, and Man from the South.
In his later years, Dahl lived in Great Missenden, England, continuing to write across genres until his death on November 23, 1990. His legacy as a master of the unsettling endures, and his unique contribution lies in crafting sophisticated adult tales that blend urbane wit with shocking brutality, revealing the savage comedy lurking beneath civilized surfaces with unforgettable precision and glee.
