Cruelty Read online

  Here you will read a story concerning wife swapping with a twist, hear of the aphrodisiac that drives men into a frenzy, discover the last act in a tale of jilted first love and discover the naked truth of art.

  MADNESS

  Tales of Fear and Unreason

  * * *

  Our greatest fear is of losing control – above all, of losing control of ourselves. In these ten unsettling tales of unexpected madness Roald Dahl explores what happens when we let go of our sanity.

  Among other stories, you’ll meet the husband with a jealous fixation on the family cat, the landlady who wants her guests to stay forever, the man whose taste for pork leads him astray and the wife with a pathological fear of being late.

  THE COMPLETE ROALD DAHL

  SHORT STORIES VOL 1 & 2

  * * *

  ‘They are brutal, these stories, and yet you finish reading each one with a smile, or maybe even a hollow laugh, certainly a shiver of gratification, because the conclusion always seems so right’ Charlie Higson

  In these two volumes chronologically collecting all Roald Dahl’s 55 published adult short stories, written between 1944 and 1988, and introduced by Charlie Higson and Anthony Horowitz, we see Roald Dahl’s powerful and dark imagination pen some of the most unsettling and disquieting tales ever written.

  Whether you’re young or old, once you’ve stepped into the brilliant, troubling world of Roald Dahl, you’ll never be the same again.

  BOY

  * * *

  ‘An autobiography is a book a person writes about his own life and it is usually full of all sorts of boring details. This is not an autobiography. I would never write a history of myself. On the other hand, throughout my young days at school and just afterwards a number of things happened to me that I have never forgotten . . .’

  Boy is a funny, insightful and at times grotesque glimpse into the early life of Roald Dahl. We discover his experiences of the English public school system, the idyllic paradise of summer holidays in Norway, the pleasures (and pains) of the sweetshop, and how it is that he avoided being a Boazer.

  This is the unadulterated childhood – sad and funny, macabre and delightful – which speaks of an age which vanished with the coming of the Second World War.

  ‘A shimmering fabric of his yesterdays, the magic and the hurt’ Observer

  ‘As frightening and funny as his fiction’ The New York Times Book Review

  ‘Superbly written. A glimpse of a brilliant eccentric’ New Statesman

  GOING SOLO

  * * *

  ‘They did not think for one moment that they would find anything but a burnt-out fuselage and a charred skeleton, and they were astounded when they came upon my still-breathing body lying in the sand nearby.’

  In 1938 Roald Dahl was fresh out of school and bound for his first job in Africa, hoping to find adventure far from home. However, he got far more excitement than he bargained for when the outbreak of the Second World War led him to join the RAF. His account of his experiences in Africa, crashing a plane in the Western Desert, rescue and recovery from his horrific injuries in Alexandria, flying a Hurricane as Greece fell to the Germans, and many other daring deeds, recreates a world as bizarre and unnerving as any he wrote about in his fiction.

  ‘Very nearly as grotesque as his fiction. The same compulsive blend of wide-eyed innocence and fascination with danger and horror’ Evening Standard

  ‘A non-stop demonstration of expert raconteurship’ The New York Times Book Review

  Roald Dahl said,

  ‘If you have good thoughts, they will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely.’

  We believe in doing good things.

  That’s why ten per cent of all Roald Dahl income* goes to our charity partners. We have supported causes including: specialist children’s nurses, grants for families in need, and educational outreach programmes. Thank you for helping us to sustain this vital work.

  Find out more at roalddahl.com

  The Roald Dahl Charitable Trust is a registered UK charity (no. 1119330).

  * All author payments and royalty income net of third-party commissions.

  THE BEGINNING

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  PENGUIN BOOKS

  UK | USA | Canada | Ireland | Australia

  India | New Zealand | South Africa

  Penguin Books is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com.

  These stories have been previously published in a variety of publications.

  Details of each story’s original publication are provided at the start of each chapter and constitute an extension of this copyright page.

  This collection first published in Penguin Books 2016

  Copyright © Roald Dahl Nominee Ltd, 1950, 1952, 1953, 1959, 1960, 1974, 1977, 1986

  The moral right of the copyright holder has been asserted

  Cover artwork by Charming Baker

  Lord Help the Soul That Bars Its Own Door, 2013

  ISBN: 978-0-718-18566-4