Roald Dahl
Page 32
38. At this stage, Dahl called these poems “Dirty Beasts.” Both the title and some of the rhymes he originally submitted to Knopf were in fact saved for his next book of verses, which was published in the United States by Farrar, Straus and Giroux (see Chapter 13, n. 22).
39. AK, September 22, 1980.
CHAPTER 13
Main sources
AK; FSG; Cape production files at Reading University Library
Interviews with Quentin Blake, Robert Gottlieb, Tom Maschler, Stephen Roxburgh, Roger Straus
NOTES
1. Alfonso’s name is given there as Alphonsus, Sofie’s as Sophie.
2. Interview with Lucy Dahl.
3. Memories with Food, pp. 32, 48.
4. For this section I have drawn on interviews with Quentin Blake and Tom Maschler, and correspondence with several of Dahl’s other illustrators and publishers: see Further Acknowledgments.
5. These terms were negotiated for the Dahl/Blake books which followed The Enormous Crocodile in a series of letters between Dahl and Gottlieb between January and May 1980.
6. AK, August 6, 1980.
7. Ibid., December 4, 1979.
8. Ibid., March 4, 1980.
9. Ibid., September 22, 1980.
10. See Chapter 8, n. 10.
11. See n. 22, below.
12. AK, February 12, 1980.
13. Ibid., March 4, 1980.
14. Interview with Robert Gottlieb.
15. AK, June 8, 1980.
16. Ibid., July 1, 1980.
17. Ibid., February 10, 1981.
18. The paperback deal (with Bantam) was made in July 1977.
19. AK, January 26, 1981.
20. Ibid., February 10, 1981.
21. Ibid., March 5, 1981, and interview with Robert Gottlieb.
22. FSG, December 29, 1981.
23. Ibid.
24. Ørnulf Hodne’s The Types of the Norwegian Fairytale is full of stories which in outline resemble Dahl’s: encounters like those in The BFG between children, ogres, and royal personages are particularly common. Another type involves several different creatures on a voyage, in the course of which, as in James and the Giant Peach, each expresses its fear in a characteristic way. Many of the tales are set in magical underworlds like that in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, or concern children with magical powers, or encounters between children and witches. Fox fables are also common, of course, as they are in all European folk cultures. So are elixirs and other transforming potions. Hans Christian Andersen has a story about miraculous flight on a swan’s back [cf. p. 273]; Grimm has several involving the pursuit of fabulous wealth in which, as in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, the pursuer is required to achieve the correct balance between being greedy and being too greedy.
25. Xerox of Valerie Buckingham’s notes on The BFG and Dahl’s comments on them, in the FSG file on the book.
26. The BFG, p. 104. Dahl added the words “‘Boys would,’ Sophie said.”
27. FSG, February 14, 1982.
28. The Bloodbottler’s words about Chileans which appear on page 58 of the FSG edition and the conversation between the Queen of England and the King of Sweden, p. 183.
29. FSG, March 1, 1982.
30. Ibid., October 25, 1984.
31. Roald Dahl’s Book of Ghost Stories, 1983.
32. FSG, March 26, 1983.
33. Interview with Quentin Blake.
34. Interview with Tom Maschler.
35. For example, Anne Pasternak Slater in Harper’s and Queen.
36. Letter from Hans Georg Heepe of Rowohlt.
37. Letter from Koukla MacLehose.
38. Russell Davies, Sunday Times, August 28, 1983.
39. TLS, July 22, 1983.
40. FSG, May 16, 1983.
41. Maria Salvadore, District of Columbia Public Library, in FSG cuttings file.
42. Omaha Public Schools review sheet in FSG cuttings file.
43. Murray Pollinger to Roger Straus, FSG, November 17, 1981.
44. According to Cape’s production records, in the archives at the Reading University Library, the first printing of 25,000 sold out and Cape printed a further 10,000 copies. But correspondence from foreign publishers, including Gyldendal in Norway, indicates an overwhelming preference for the later Quentin Blake edition.
45. Interview with Stephen Roxburgh.
46. Personal letter from Stephen Roxburgh.
47. Interview with Stephen Roxburgh.
48. The Witches, p. 19.
49. The BFG, p. 49.
50. TES, December 27, 1985.
51. Michele Landsberg’s Guide to Children’s Books, 1986.
52. Ibid., p. 72.
53. The New York Times Book Review, November 13, 1983.
54. FSG, May 20, 1983.
55. Ibid., October 25, 1984.
56. Ibid., April 28, 1983.
57. Ibid., May 16, 1983.
CHAPTER 14
Main sources
FSG; files of the Literary Review
Interviews with Elizabeth Attenborough, Lucy Dahl, Tessa Dahl, Valerie Eaton Griffith, Tom Maschler, Peter Mayer, Anthony Page, Stephen Roxburgh, Roger Straus
NOTES
1. Interview with Roger Straus.
2. FSG, May 15, 1987.
3. Ibid., August 23, 1987.
4. Ibid., June 22, 1987.
5. Interview with Martha Gellhorn.
6. Dahl no longer wanted it to be publicized that he wrote for Playboy and, when the magazine bought parts of My Uncle Oswald, insisted on a contract that did not require him to acknowledge the fact in the eventual book (AK, November 15, 1979).
7. FSG, May 20, 1983.
8. Interviews with Tom Maschler and Stephen Roxburgh.
9. Interview with Brough Girling.
10. Powling.
11. FSG, April 28, 1983.
12. Interview with Anthony Page.
13. Powling, p. 11.
14. Ibid., p. 42.
15. Ibid., p. 43.
16. See Chapter 8, n. 28.
17. Powling, pp. 58–58.
18. FSG, February 14, 1984.
19. Ibid., May 15, 1984.
20. Ibid., August 17, 1984.
21. Ibid., September 26, 1984.
22. Ibid., October 2, 1984.
23. Interviews with Stephen Roxburgh and Tom Maschler.
24. Interview with Tom Maschler.
25. FSG, September 11 and 14, 1984.
26. Powling, p. 66. Dahl had a variety of standard replies, comical and charming, many of them in doggerel. One—addressed to “Dear gorgeous [name of teacher] and all the clever people at [name of school]”—began: “Oh, wondrous children miles away, / Your letters brightened up my day.” Another ended by saying that Dahl was glad to know that he had made “You children, and occasionally the staff / Stop work, and have instead a little laugh.” (Information supplied by Liz Attenborough and Carolyn Hemmings.)
27. “A Visit to Roald Dahl,” by “Karen Coad,” see n. 17 above.
28. Memories with Food, p. 227.
29. Interviews with Lucy Dahl and Tessa Dahl.
30. Personal experience of the author. The Times Literary Supplement’s reviewer, Malcolm Yapp, was moved by the book’s pictures but found the text tendentious and sensationalist (TLS, August 26, 1983).
31. The New Statesman, August 26, 1983.
32. Interview with Sir Isaiah Berlin.
33. CM, July 26, 1946. The words are a paraphrase of Dahl’s own.
34. See Chapter 5, n. 21.
35. See Chapter 5, n. 30.
36. OTY, p. 74.
37. Interview with Robert Gottlieb.
38. Interview with Brough Girling.
39. Quoted by Mike Coren in The New Statesman, August 26, 1983.
40. Article by Sebastian Faulks in the Daily Telegraph, September 18, 1983; files of the Literary Review.
41. For example, in a letter to The Times, September 19, 1983.
42. See Chapter 5, n. 21.
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43. Conversation with David Wolton. Dahl was a guest at the 1989 MAP dinner where Mona Bauwens, the daughter of a PLO leader, first met the Conservative minister David Mellor, a relationship that was later to force his resignation.
44. See Malcolm Yapp’s review in the TLS, August 26, 1983, where he argues with David Gilmour for saying this.
45. The Spectator, September 3, 1983.
46. The New Statesman, August 26, 1983.
47. Letters to The New Statesman from Marion Woolfson, and from Sidney Goldwater, of the Association of Jewish Ex-Servicemen and Women, September 2 and 16, 1983.
48. The New Republic, October 31, 1983.
49. One was Mort Levin, president of the Regent Book Company, New Jersey: FSG, December 19, 1983.
50. See Chapter 3, n. 22.
51. The letter was part of a project organized by Dinah Stroe, a teacher at Brandeis Hillel Day School, San Francisco, to whom, and to Vavi Toran, I am grateful for sending me copies of all the relevant material.
52. Quoted in The Northern California Jewish Bulletin, March 3, 1990.
53. Interview with Camilla Corbin.
54. FSG, May 29, 1985.
55. Puffin archive, RD to Barry Cunningham at Penguin, June 17, 1985.
56. For example, in Puffin’s promotional video for Matilda (Puffin archive).
57. See Chapter 9, n. 10.
58. Playboy, January 1988.
59. Interview with Valerie Finnis. Dahl had been friendly with the principal of the Waterperry Gardening School, Miss Beatrix Havergal, who was now dead. Miss Havergal was a large woman, whose unchanging costume consisted of a green linen smock beneath a dark green blazer with brass buttons, green breeches, green woolen stockings, brown tie, and brown felt hat. Dahl used her as a model for Miss Trunchbull’s clothes and physique (but not her personality), and asked her colleague Valerie Finnis (Lady Scott) to send him a photograph of her, so that Quentin Blake would get her exactly right. He did, Lady Scott says, except that he mistakenly drew her shoes with large protruding tongues.
60. FSG, October 5, 1987.
61. Ibid., December 23, 1987.
62. Ibid., January 15, 1988.
63. Ibid.
64. Matilda, second FSG draft, pp. 24, 90. Dahl also often wrote “your’s” and “it’s” for “yours” and “its.”
CHAPTER 15
Main sources
FSG
Interviews with Elizabeth Attenborough, Amanda Conquy, Brian Cox, Lucy Dahl, Tessa Dahl, Elizabeth Stewart-Liberty, Peter Mayer, Peggy Miller, Patricia Neal, Stephen Roxburgh
Report of the Police Complaints Authority, July 3, 1989
NOTES
1. Interviews with Peter Carson and Peggy Miller.
2. FSG, August 23, 1987.
3. Interview with Robin Hogg.
4. Lynn Barber, Mostly Men, rev. edn., 1992, p. 97.
5. Telephone interview with Brian Sibley.
6. Interview with Elizabeth Stewart-Liberty.
7. Conversations with John Mortimer and Susan Mayes.
8. Interviews with Stephen Roxburgh and Tessa Dahl.
9. Letter from RD to Valerie Finnis.
10. Letters to Kenneth Baker and Brian Cox, July 27, 1988.
11. Daily Mail, November 16, 1988.
12. When the journalist Angela Levin raised the issue with Felicity Dahl, “tears welled into her eyes again. ‘The reaction … meant that he lost any form of knighthood. Not that he wanted one, but he would have liked a little recognition from his country for whom he wrote great literature and fought bravely … during the war.’” (You magazine, October 6, 1991.)
13. Daily Mail, November 16, 1988.
14. Independent, March 21, 1990.
15. The Times, February 28, 1989.
16. Conversation with Penelope Lively.
17. Conversation with Martin Amis.
18. Interview with Stephen Roxburgh.
19. Publishers Weekly, December 15, 1989.
20. Report of the Police Complaints Authority, July 3, 1989, and press reports, eg., Daily Telegraph, July 14, 1989.
21. Obituary note by Spiv and Marius Barran in the Independent, November 28, 1990. Further information from Elizabeth Attenborough and Amanda Conquy.
22. Dutch TV interview with Ivo Niehe.
23. For example, to Terry Lane on ABC Radio.
24. The Guardian, August 12, 1989.
25. Article by Christopher Sykes, The Times, November 30, 1990.
26. Article by Martin Kettle, The Guardian, May 19, 1990.
27. WSHS, pp. 84, 97.
28. Interview with Elizabeth Stewart-Liberty.
29. Interview with Tessa Dahl.
30. Interview with Amanda Conquy.
31. Interview with Patricia Neal, who lent me a recording of the service.
32. Interview with Tessa Dahl.
33. Peter Mayer, “A Tribute to Roald Dahl,” privately printed, 1990.
Index
“Abide with Me,” 122
Adam, Ken, 177
Albertson, Jack, 186
Allen & Unwin, 215; see also Unwin, Rayner
Altman, Robert, 251
Amersham, see Wistaria Cottage, Amersham
Amis, Martin, 269
Anderson, Alex (son-in-law), 182
Andrews, Eamonn, 219
Angell, Roger, 129
Annabella, 207–8
Appleyard, Brian, 268
Arnold, Michael, 37
As I Am, 208
Atkins, David, 27
Atlantic Monthly, The, 89
Attallah, Nairn, 255
Attlee, Violet, 96
“Automatic Grammatisator, The,” 105
Ayres, Lew, 123
Bacon, Francis, 53
Bader, Douglas, 176
Baker, Kenneth, 267
Balfour, Harold, 55
Barber, Lynn, 266
Barry, John, 176
Beaverbrook, Lord, 80
Belloc, Hilaire, 261
Bentinck, H. N., 93
Berchtesgaden, 98
Berens, Phoebe, 213
Berle, Adolf, 61
Berlin, Isaiah, 255–56
Bernstein, Helen, 212
Bernstein, Leonard, 110
Bernstein, Robert, 256
“Beware of the Dog,” 174
BFG, The, 253
Bierce, Ambrose, 16–17
Bisgood, Douglas, 68
“Bitch,” 165
Bittenwieser, Paul A., 132
Blake, Quentin, 228
Bloom, Harold Jack, 178
Blyton, Enid, 268
Bodley Head, The, 161
Bogarde, Dirk, 250
Bohr, Niels, 73
Booker Prize, 270
Book-of-the-Month Club, 172
Bookseller, 193
“Bookseller, The,” 260
Boston Globe, 219
Boston Herald, 149
Boy, 252
Bradbury, Malcolm, 131–32
Brave New World, 183
Brians, Paul, 88
Brinkley, David, 61
British Broadcasting Corp. (BBC), 106
British Embassy, Washington, D.C., 56–58
British intelligence, 72–77
British Security Coordination (BSC), 77
Broccoli, Albert “Cubby,” 183
Brooks, Alden, 129
Bryce, Ivar, 199
Brynner, Yul, 129
Buckingham, Valerie, 240
Buckingham Palace, 238
Buckinghamshire, see Great Missenden
Buffalo News, 120
“Business, the,” 275
Buxton, John, 71
Cadbury’s chocolate, 23
Cameron, Eleanor, 203
Campbell, John W., Jr., 88
Campbell, Ronald, 56
Campbell, Roy, 93
“Captain Hornblower,” 58
Cardiff, Wales, 13–14
Caro, Robert, 6
Carroll, Lewis, 90
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br /> Carson, Jack, 108
Carton, Charles, 166
“Champion of the World, The,” 201
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, 154
Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, 203
“Charlie’s Chocolate Boy,” 135
Charpentier, Paul, 79
Charpentier, Suzanne, see Annabella
Chatto & Windus, 162
Chest, Heart and Stroke Association, 205
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, 183–84
Christie, J. T., 25–26
Churchill, Winston, 74–75
Clarke, Charlotte, 64
Clarke, Dennis, 33
“Claud’s Dog,” 83
Clifton, Tony, 255
Coen, Fabio, 235
Coke, David, 47
Collected Short Stories, 260
“Collector’s Item,” 93
Collier’s magazine, 113
Connolly, Cyril, 248
Conquy, Amanda, 179
Cooper, Gary, 159
Corrado, “Victor,” 20
Cosmopolitan, 69
Coughton Court, 225
Coward, Noël, 99
Cowley, Joy, 186
Cox, Brian, 267
Cozzens, James Gould, 260
Cromie, Robert, 88
Crosland, Charles, 224
Crosland, Felicity, see Dahl, Felicity Crosland
Cuneo, Ernest, 100
Curzon House Club, 218
Cusick family, 136
d’Abreu, Alfonso, 224
d’Abreu, Elizabeth, 224
Dahl, Alfhild (sister), 182
Dahl, Asta (sister), 182
Dahl, Astri (sister), 14
Dahl, Ellen (half sister), 145
Dahl, Else (sister), 210
Dahl, Felicity Crosland (second wife), 275–76
Dahl, Harald (father), 224
Dahl, Louis (half brother), 114
Dahl, Lucy (daughter): birth of, 220
Dahl, Olivia (daughter): birth of, 272
Dahl, Ophelia (daughter): aftermath of RD’s death, 225
Dahl, Roald, 174–79
Dahl, Sofie Hesselberg (mother): background, 128
Dahl, Tessa (daughter): after RD’s death, 210
Dahl, Theo (son): accident to, 223
Dahl & Dahl, 275
Dahl & Son, 223
Dahl (Roald) Foundation, 275
Daily Mail, 268
Danny, the Champion of the World, 272
Dar es Salaam, 41
David, Elizabeth, 212
Davies, Robertson, 132
Davies, Russell, 239
Davis, Nancy (Reagan), 123
“Death of an Old Old Man,” 72
Dehn, Paul, 176
Denison, Michael, 267
Dinesen, Isak, 38–39