Credit: Rob Bogaerts / Anefo, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
Roald Dahl is one of the world’s most beloved storytellers. From Fantastic Mr. Fox to Matilda and The Twits, his magical and macabre books (along with Quentin Blake’s iconic illustrations) have captured the imaginations of generations of children.
But behind the fantastical tales was an interesting and, at times, controversial life. Just like his books, the story of Roald Dahl is filled with adventures and unexpected twists, as well as tragedies and dark turns.
To give you an idea of the man behind the words, we’ve uncovered 15 fascinating facts about Roald Dahl.
1. Roald Dahl was named after a famous Norwegian explorer
Roald Dahl was born in Cardiff, Wales, to a wealthy Norwegian family. Norwegian was his first language, and he often spent summers as a teenager in locales like Oslo and Drøbak.
He was named after the renowned Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen, who became the first person in history to reach the South Pole in 1911.
2. Writing wasn’t always Roald Dahl’s strong suit
While Roald Dahl went on to become one of the most celebrated children’s authors in history, writing didn’t come naturally to him as a child, according to his tutors.
One teacher at Repton School in Derbyshire said about him: “I have never met anybody who so persistently writes words meaning the exact opposite of what is intended.”
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3. Beatrix Potter told a young Roald Dahl to “buzz off”
According to sources close to Roald Dahl, when the author-to-be was nine or ten years old, he travelled to the Lake District, unannounced, to visit his favourite author, Beatrix Potter.
Apparently, the young Dahl spotted Potter in her garden. When she asked him what he wanted, he said that he’d come to see Beatrix Potter, to which she replied, “Well, you’ve seen her now, so buzz off.”
The encounter, which may have been embellished (if not entirely made up), inspired the 2020 film Roald & Beatrix: The Tail of the Curious Mouse, starring Dawn French as the Peter Rabbit creator.
4. Roald Dahl was a fighter pilot in World War II
During the Second World War, Roald Dahl had an eventful career as an RAF pilot. One of his most memorable experiences came in 1940, when he crash-landed in the Libyan desert, fracturing his skull and leaving him unconscious. Luckily, he came to in time to escape the burning wreckage and was later saved.
Dahl also took part in what’s known as ‘the Battle of Athens’, a dogfight over the Greek Island between 12 RAF Hurricanes and a large group of German Luftwaffe aircraft. Sadly, four of his fellow pilots were shot down and killed, including Marmaduke ‘Pat’ Pattle, a famous flying ace. Yet, Dahl was unscathed.
Dahl’s first book, The Gremlins, was inspired by his time as a pilot. It centred around the mischievous, mythical creatures that pilots often blame for mechanical failures on aircraft, and was originally written for Walt Disney, with the intention of becoming an animated feature. However, the film was never made.
5. Roald Dahl stood six feet and six inches tall
Drawing many comparisons to one of his most iconic characters, the BFG, Roald Dahl was a whopping six feet and six inches tall. This earned him the nickname ‘Lofty’ from his RAF comrades.
6. Roald Dahl wrote in the shed at the bottom of his garden
From young children to the whine of a vacuum cleaner, Roald Dahl found his house too distracting to write in. So, inspired by the poet Dylan Thomas, who famously wrote in a little shed looking over the Taf estuary in Carmarthenshire, Dahl decided to build a writing hut of his own at the bottom of his garden.
Here, Dahl penned some of his most famous works in a wing-backed armchair with a flat wooden board balanced across the arms to act as a writing surface. Interestingly, he usually left the curtains drawn and worked under the light of a lamp. He also kept a piece of his hip bone, removed during a hip replacement, on his desk, along with a ball of chocolate bar wrappers he collected since childhood.
The hut was relocated from his home in Great Missenden to the nearby Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre in 2011, where you can see it for yourself.
7. Roald Dahl invented over 500 new words and names
From fizzwiggler and whangdoodle to grobblesquirt and humplecrimp, Roald Dahl invented over 500 words and names throughout his career. These made-up terms are a key part of the author’s iconically playful style, many of which form the whimsical lexicon of the BFG, gobblefunk.
You can find all of Dahl’s word creations, plus plenty of his favourite ‘real’ words, in the Oxford Roald Dahl Dictionary, compiled by lexicographer Dr Susan Rennie.
8. Roald Dahl was a spy
After the Battle of Athens, Roald Dahl was invalided home to England because the injuries he sustained in his North African crash were causing dangerous symptoms, such as headaches and blackouts.
However, soon after returning home, Dahl was recruited as an assistant air attaché to the British embassy in Washington, D.C. Though he didn’t enjoy his new job, which was a far cry from zipping over the Mediterranean in a Hawker Hurricane, he soon found himself part of high society in the U.S. capital.
This is why, when Dahl was let go from the embassy in 1942, he was quickly recruited by spymaster William ‘Intrepid’ Stephenson, whom Winston Churchill had tasked with swaying anti-British and anti-war sentiments in America. Dahl then began a three-year career in espionage. He reportedly had a talent for seducing influential socialites.
9. Roald Dahl was married to a Hollywood actress
After meeting at a party in 1951, Roald Dahl and Hollywood actress Patricia Neal married in 1953. They went on to have five children: Olivia, Tessa, Theo, Ophelia, and Lucy.
Neal is known for her roles in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, The Day the Earth Stood Still, and Hud, for which she won a Best Actress Oscar.
When the pair divorced in 1983, it emerged that Dahl had been having a decade-long affair with Felicity Crosland, a set designer whom Neal met while filming a commercial. Dahl and Crosland married that year and remained together for the rest of Dahl’s life.
10. Roald Dahl’s family life was marred by tragedy
Roald Dahl experienced many family tragedies throughout his life. When he was three years old, his eldest sister, Astri, died from appendicitis. Just a few weeks after, his father, Harald, succumbed to pneumonia, which Dahl blamed on his overwhelming grief.
Later in life, Dahl’s son, Theo, was four months old when he suffered a severe brain injury after a taxi hit his pram in New York. A year later, Dahl’s seven-year-old daughter, Olivia, contracted measles and passed away soon afterwards.
Thankfully, Theo recovered from his injuries and, according to a local newspaper, now lives ‘a quiet life’ in Naples, Florida, where he bags groceries at a downtown supermarket.
Sadly, the tragedies didn’t stop there. In 1965, Patricia suffered a near-fatal stroke while she was pregnant with the couple’s fifth daughter, Lucy, leaving her right side paralysed and unable to speak. With the help of her husband, friends, and neighbours, she recovered, returned to her acting career, and on August 4, 1965, gave birth to Lucy, who went on to become a successful screenwriter.
11. Roald Dahl collaborated with Ian Fleming several times
Roald Dahl worked alongside James Bond creator Ian Fleming a few times throughout his life. Interestingly, the first had nothing to do with writing.
Fleming was similarly recruited by William Stephenson to work as a spy during World War II alongside other recognisable names, such as playwright Noel Coward and Gone With the Wind actor Leslie Howard.
Dahl also adapted two of Fleming’s books for the screen: You Only Live Twice (1967) and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968).
12. James and the Giant Peach was almost called something else
James and the Giant Peach, the magical and macabre story of an orphan boy who sets off on a fantastical journey inside a ginormous stone fruit, established Roald Dahl’s status as a successful children’s writer in 1961. But did you know that the tale nearly centred around a very different fruit?
The book was inspired by a cherry tree in the orchard of Dahl’s Buckinghamshire home and what would happen if one of the fruits continued growing to an immense size. However, Dahl later changed the central fruit from a cherry to a peach because it was “prettier, bigger and squishier”.
13. Roald Dahl was a medical pioneer
Roald Dahl had a lifelong fascination with medicine and was involved with various medical revolutions over the years.
For example, while Patricia was recovering from her stroke, Dahl, with the help of those around him, devised “an intensive six-hours-a-day-regime” to support her recovery. Finding it successful, Dahl later wrote a rehabilitation guide with his neighbour, Valerie Eaton Griffith.
As Dahl’s friend and doctor Tom Solomon writes in The Guardian, “[Griffith] developed this into a book, and the methods were taken up widely, inspiring a whole new movement, which led to the formation of The Stroke Association.”
Dahl also teamed up with a neurosurgeon and a toymaker to invent a valve to treat hydrocephalus (a buildup of fluid in the brain), which Theo suffered from after his accident. According to Dahl, “It was used to treat thousands of children around the world.”
14. Roald Dahl had a dark side
Roald Dahl’s children’s books have always been as dark and twisted as they are magical. As a result, his work has consistently been subject to censorship.
For example, in 2023, publisher Puffin changed hundreds of potentially offensive words to make new editions of Dahl’s books more suitable for modern audiences. This sparked outcry from many, including then-Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
However, the controversy around Dahl isn’t limited to his works. Throughout his life, Dahl made several public antisemitic remarks. Because of this, in 2018, the Royal Mint dropped their proposal to celebrate the author’s life with a commemorative coin, stating that he was “not regarded as an author of the highest reputation”. Dahl’s estate published an apology for his comments in 2020.
Step into worlds where chocolate rivers flow and giants roam
Discover classic works by Roald Dahl on Amazon.
15. Roald Dahl was buried with a few of his favourite objects
Roald Dahl died at the age of 74 due to complications of myelodysplastic syndrome, a rare type of blood cancer.
According to his wishes, he was given a Viking funeral of sorts and buried with some of his favourite objects. These included snooker cues, red wine, some chocolates, a power saw, and, fittingly, some HB pencils.
Final thoughts…
From his adventurous beginnings and medical breakthroughs to his personal tragedies and controversies, Roald Dahl’s life is just as fascinating and surprising as the fiction he dreamed up.
For more facts about beloved writers from history, why not visit our books and literature section? Here, you can gain a glimpse into the lives of figures like Ernest Hemingway and Edgar Allan Poe, or read interviews with bestselling contemporary authors like Elif Shafak and Tessa Hadley.
Did you learn something new in this article? Or have you got another fact about Roald Dahl you’d like to share? We’d love to hear from you in the comments below.