Some of us are still startled that Wallace Stevens was 44 when he published Harmonium. So what to make of the fact that Roald Dahl was past the midpoint of his forties when he wrote his first children’s book in 1961, James and the Giant Peach? At the time, he was known as a dark little adult fabulist; macabre like Saki, twisty like O. Henry.
A hint as to his view of children’s writing thereto is found in a letter anticipating the birth of his first child: ‘Parenthood is a great strain. I can see it all. Nursery books for Knopf. Once upon a time there was a dear little bunny . . .’ He did indeed end up writing nursery books for Knopf, but dear little bunnies were thin on the ground.
His stocks in trade were vile aunts and Vermicious Knids, unhygienic misanthropes and paedocidal witches, unlicensed pharmacists and flatulent anthropophagi. Horrible ends lurked round every corner, and the best and kindest people in his books were by and large quite demented.
London’s critics and America’s librarians deprecated him. Ursula K. Le Guin reported that exposure to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory had turned her daughter ‘quite nasty’. Even the NAACP had a go, over the racial stereotyping of Oompa-Loompas.
But Dahl never had any doubt that he knew the high road to the hearts of his audience:
Up to now, a whole lot of grown-ups have written reviews, but none of them have really known what they are talking about because a grown-up talking about a children’s book is like a man talking about a woman’s hat.
He wasn’t much of a dear little bunny himself, mind you. He was mendacious, controlling, thin-skinned, self-righteous, bullying, boastful and vile to colleagues and family alike.
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