Author:Roald Dahl,Jeremy Treglown
Many of these stores are now so famous from film and television adaptations that they need no introduction. Roald Dahl is well known as a master of the macabre and the unexpected in the tradition of Saki, and this volume does not disappoint.
He began his literary career by writing about his own experiences in the RAF during World War II but soon developed this talent in a series of short-story collections. He is perhaps even more celebrated as an author of children's books, but the best of his short stories represent a claim for him to be numbered among the most remarkable story writers of the 20th century.
The present volume includes for the first time all the stories in chronological order as established by Dahl's biographer, Jeremy Treglown, in consultation with the Dahl estate.
A most wonderful, lurid, poisonous little tale
—— Oscar WildeIt really does turn your blood cold
—— Colm TóibínTechnically, he is extraordinarily brilliant, and stylistically he's wonderful
—— David LodgeHenry James is as solitary in the history of the novel as Shakespeare is in the history of poetry
—— Graham Greene[James] is the most intelligent man of his generation
—— T. S. EliotThe Turn of the Screw is the most hopelessly evil story that we have ever read in any literature, ancient or modern
—— IndependentWe are afraid of something unnamed, of something, perhaps, in ourselves... Henry James...can still make us afraid of the dark
—— Virginia WoolfDark, funny and disturbing
—— London Review of BooksThese 10 inventive stories, set mostly in the Florida Everglades, mix satire and sophisticated whimsy
—— New York TimesKaren Russell has produced an engaging debut. Her ability to integrate mythology and the supernatural with the very contemporary...is reminiscent of Angela Carter, but unlike Carter's many imitators, Russell never descends into whimsy... In St Lucy's, humans, ghosts and animals are utterly real; and Russell sells the genuine article, a seemingly effortless writer
—— Alisa Cox , MslexiaThese are stories that will sneak into the back of your brain and lurk there long after you are finished reading.
—— Global ReviewPoignant and wonderful story...concentrates, without effort, all Malouf's themes...it needs to be read
—— Prospect