Roald Dahl (1916-1990), the British author, playwright and scriptwriter known for such books as James and the Giant Peach and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, (both made into movies) said to be one of the most popular and certainly one of the wealthiest children's book authors in the world, actually stumbled into that career pretty much by accident.

He was imaginative and restless as a child himself, an indifferent student whose great achievement in school was "The Great Mouse Plot of 1924" where he and four schoolmates put a dead mouse in the gobstopper candy jar at the shop run by the nasty Mrs. Pratchett. They were caned for their efforts.

As an adult, Dahl explored Newfoundland and joined Shell Petroleum Company for the travel, living in Africa for a number of years, then joined the Royal Air Force as the Second World War loomed. After a crash in the Libyan desert left him unfit to serve, Dahl transferred to Washington as an assistant air attaché – a spy, in fact.

The writer C. S. Forster asked him to provide notes for a story on the RAF for The Saturday Evening Post and instead, Dahl provided a short story, The Gremlins, later published as a children's book though it was not originally intended for kids.

Over the course of his career, Dahl wrote short stories, scripts, screenplays and then settled into children's books in 1961 with the publication of James and the Giant Peach followed by numerous others including Fantastic Mr. Fox, The BFG and Matilda among others. Dahl's short stories are known for their plot twists, and his children's books for their clear-eyed, macabre, often darkly comic mood, featuring treacherous adult enemies of the child characters.

His work has been translated into 63 languages and has sold more than 200 million copies.Read moreRead less