Storyteller: The Life of Roald Dahl - Softcover

Sturrock, Donald

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0007341180 ISBN 13: 9780007341184

Publisher: HarperPress, 2010

Synopsis

The authorised biography of one of the greatest storytellers of all time, written with complete and exclusive access to the archives stored in the Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre.

Roald Dahl pushed children's literature into new and uncharted territory. More than fifteen years after his death, his popularity around the globe continues to grow, and worldwide sales of his books have now topped 100 million.

The man behind the stories, however, remains an enigma. Dahl was a single-minded adventurer, an eternal child, but his public persona was characterised by his blunt opinions on taboo subjects. Described as an anti-Semite, a racist and a misogynist, he felt ignored and undervalued by the literary establishments of London and New York.

To his readers, though, Dahl was always a hero, and since his death his reputation has been transformed. His wild imagination is now celebrated, along with his quirky humour and his linguistic elegance. Figures like Willy Wonka, the BFG and the Grand High Witch are nothing less than immortal literary creations, and in a recent poll he beat J. K. Rowling to win the title of Britain's favourite author.

In this masterly biography, Donald Sturrock draws on a huge range of source material that has become available since Dahl's death. The result is revealing, compelling and a pure joy to read.

About this title

Product Description:

655 pages. Book appears to have hardly been read and is in Fine condition throughout.

Review:

“It’s a measure of the greatness of this biography that Sturrock is able to get behind these fantasies and exaggerations without losing respect or sympathy for Dahl....There are big gaps between Dahl’s masterpieces....a real joy of this book is that they show just how much work went into those slim volumes, and how much depended on a series of brilliant editors” The Times by Frank Cottrell Boyce

“This is his first biography and it is hard to see how he could have done it better. At all times he is able to view Dahl from within and without - as he saw himself and as others saw him – and to explain the divide... Dahl’s life is a biographer’s dream...full of drama, both comical and romantic and, sometimes, desperately tragic... For all his faults... there was something magnificently bullish about Roald Dahl, a childlike refusal to accept the world as it was. Donald Sturrock captures this side of him beautifully, so much so that I finished STORYTELLER feeling... his was a heroic life” Mail on Sunday by Craig Brown
”Pig-headed, domineering, mendacious, boastful, foul-mouthed, coarse, boorish--as you tick off the adjectives that describe Roald Dahl, the chances of a biographer coming up with a winning portrait seem slim. Yet Donald Sturrock has managed it with zest and aplomb. What shines out from almost every page of this intimately informed biography is Dahl’s vitality, courage and passion for life...What he was was vivid and dynamic, and this vivid, dynamic book gives you the illusion that you knew him”. Sunday Times by John Carey

”It’s hard to imagine anyone do a better job on him than Donald Sturrock... consistently shrewd, well able to embrace his subject’s many contradictions, generally sympathetic and yet never blind to Dahl’s less attractive side... it’s exemplary” Daily Mail by John Preston

About this edition

• Publisher: HarperPress
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0007341180
• ISBN 13: 9780007341184
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 448