THE PHIZZ WHIZZING COLLECTION

15 fantastic stories

by ROALD DAHL

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New, shrinkwrapped set of 15 of Roald Dahl's best-loved kids' books. 15 softcover books in presentation slipcase.

This boxed set contains 15 books:

• Fantastic Mr. Fox
• The Witches
• The Twits
• James and the Giant Peach
• Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
• The BFG
• The Magic Finger
• The Giraffe and the Pelly and Me
• Boy Take of Childhood
• Matilda
• Danny the Champion of the World
• George's Marvelous Medicine
• Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator
• Esio Trot
• Going Solo
  

Roald Dahl's mother used to tell him and his sisters tales about trolls and other mythical Norwegian creatures and some of his children's books contain references or elements inspired by these stories, such as the giants in The BFG. Many of his children's books are illustrated by Quentin Blake.
Dahl's children's works are usually told from the point of view of a child. They typically involve adult villains or villainesses who hate and mistreat children, and feature at least one "good" adult to counteract the villain/s/. These stock characters are possibly a reference to the abuse that Dahl stated that he experienced in the boarding schools he attended. They usually contain a lot of black humour and grotesque scenarios, including gruesome violence. The Witches, George's Marvelous Medicine and Matilda are examples of this formula. The BFG follows it in a more analogous way with the good giant (the BFG or "Big Friendly Giant") representing the "good adult" archetype and the other giants being the "bad adults". Class-conscious themes – ranging from the thinly veiled to the blatant – also surface in works such as Fantastic Mr. Fox and Danny, the Champion of the World.

Dahl also features in his books characters that are very fat, usually children. Augustus Gloop, Bruce Bogtrotter, and Bruno Jenkins are a few of these characters, although an enormous woman named Aunt Sponge is featured in James and The Giant Peach. All of these characters, with the possible exception of Bruce Bogtrotter, are either villains or simply unpleasant gluttons. They are usually punished for this: Augustus Gloop drinks from Willy Wonka's chocolate river, disregarding the adults who tell him not to, and falls in, getting sucked up a pipe and nearly being turned into fudge. Bruce Bogtrotter steals cake from the evil headmistress, Miss Trunchbull, and is forced to eat a gigantic chocolate cake in front of the school. Bruno Jenkins is turned into a mouse by witches and, it is speculated, possibly disowned or even killed by his parents because of this. Aunt Sponge is flattened by a giant peach.

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About the author

Roald Dahl (13 September 1916 – 23 November 1990) was a British novelist, short story writer and screenwriter, born in Llandaff Cardiff, Wales to Norwegian parents. After service in the Royal Air Force during the Second World War, in which he became a flying ace, he rose to prominence in the 1940s with works for both children and adults, and became one of the world's bestselling authors. His short stories are known for their unexpected endings, and his children's books for their unsentimental, often very dark humour. Some of his most popular books include The Twits, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, James and the Giant Peach, Matilda, The Witches and The BFG.

Dahl's first published work, inspired by a meeting with C. S. Forester, was Shot Down Over Libya. Today the story is published as "A Piece of Cake". The story, about his wartime adventures, was bought by the Saturday Evening Post for 0, and propelled him into a career as a writer. Its title was inspired by a highly inaccurate and sensationalized article about the crash that blinded him, which claimed he had been shot down instead of simply having to land due to low fuel. His first children's book was The Gremlins, about mischievous little creatures that were part of RAF folklore. The book was commissioned by Walt Disney for a film that was never made, and published in 1943. Dahl went on to create some of the best-loved children's stories of the 20th century, such as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Matilda and James and the Giant Peach.

He also had a successful parallel career as the writer of macabre adult short stories, usually with a dark sense of humour and a surprise ending. Many were originally written for American magazines such as Collier's, Ladies Home Journal, Harper's, Playboy and The New Yorker, then subsequently collected by Dahl into anthologies, gaining worldwide acclaim. Dahl wrote more than 60 short stories and they have appeared in numerous collections, some only being published in book form after his death. See List of Roald Dahl short stories. His stories also brought him three Edgar Awards: in 1954, for the collection Someone Like You; in 1959, for the story The Landlady; and in 1980, for the episode of Tales of the Unexpected based on "Skin".

One of his more famous adult stories, "The Smoker" (also known as "Man From the South"), was filmed twice as both 1960 and 1985 episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, and also adapted into Quentin Tarantino's segment of the 1995 film Four Rooms. This bizarre, oft-anthologized suspense classic concerns a man residing in Jamaica who wagers with visitors in an attempt to claim the fingers from their hands; the 1960 Hitchcock version stars Steve McQueen and Peter Lorre.

His short story collection Tales of the Unexpected was adapted to a successful TV series of the same name, beginning with "Man From the South". When the stock of Dahl's own original stories was exhausted, the series continued by adapting stories by authors that were written in Dahl's style, including the American writers John Collier and Stanley Ellin. He acquired a traditional Romanichal Gypsy wagon in the 1960s and the family used it as a playhouse for his children. He later used the vardo as a writing room, where he wrote the book Danny, the Champion of the World.
A number of his short stories are supposed to be extracts from the diary of his (fictional) Uncle Oswald, a rich gentleman whose sexual exploits form the subject of these stories.

For a brief, relatively unsuccessful period in the 1960s, Dahl wrote screenplays. Two of his screenplays – the James Bond film You Only Live Twice and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang – were adaptations of novels by Ian Fleming. Dahl also wrote an initial draft adapting his own novel Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which was heavily rewritten by David Seltzer, and produced as the film Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971). Dahl later disowned the film. Dahl would later receive posthumous songwriting credits for the soundtrack of Tim Burton's 2005 film adaptation of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, as several songs written by Dahl for the novel were used in the film, set to music composed by Danny Elfman.

Roald Dahl died in November 1990 at the age of 74 of a rare blood disease, myelodysplastic anaemia (sometimes called "pre-leukemia"), at his home, Gipsy House in Great Missenden, Buckinghamshire, and was buried in the cemetery at the parish church of Saints Peter and Paul. According to his granddaughter, the family gave him a "sort of Viking funeral". He was buried with his snooker cues, some very good burgundy, chocolates, HB pencils and a power saw.
Memories with Food at Gipsy House, written with his wife Felicity and published posthumously in 1991, was a mixture of recipes, family reminiscences and Dahl's musings on favourite subjects such as chocolate, onions, and claret.

Dahl ranks amongst the world's bestselling fiction authors, with sales estimated at 100 million.

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The Phizz Whizzing Collection - 15 fantastic stories by Roald Dahl