Dahl, Roald (Vol. 18) - Introduction

Dahl, Roald 1916–

Dahl, an Englishman born in Wales, is a short story writer, novelist, playwright, screenwriter, and the author of several controversial and widely-read children's books, "cautionary tales for bad children" (of which Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is the best known). Dahl's special talent as a short story writer is the integration of the pedestrian and the grotesque in tales that have been likened to Charles Addams's cartoons. (See also CLC, Vols. 1, 6, and Contemporary Authors, Vols. 1-4, rev. ed.)

Dahl writes in the tradition of the light fantastic—its other masters include Saki, Lord Dunsany, John Collier, Robert M. Coates—and these stories [in Tales of the Unexpected], selected from previous collections, are all marked by a kind of dark humor, sometimes merely wry, other times macabre, occasionally grisly.

"New in Paperback: 'Tales of the Unexpected'," in Book World—The Washington Post (© 1979, The Washington Post), September 23, 1979, p. 13.