Books

First UK edition, first impression, inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper: "To Clare, with love, from Roald Dahl". The recipient, Clare A. Shapland, has inserted her bookplate on the front pastedown. As noted by one of Dahl's biographers, "Danny... is perhaps Dahl's most straightforward and lyrical children's book" (Sturrock, p. 467). Inscribed copies are not common. The novel is based on the short story "The Champion of the World", which was first published in The New Yorker Magazine on 23 January 1959. It would be collected within Kiss Kiss (published in 1960). As noted by the dust jacket blurb, the novel is "full of absorbing action and heart-stopping suspense, it is fabulous, irresistible fun". The work was the basis for the 1989 film of the same title starring Jeremy Irons, with his son Samuel in the title role. In the 2023 BBC's poll of "The 100 Greatest Children's Books of All Time", the novel was ranked at number 92. Octavo. Original orange boards, spine lettered in gilt, top edge orange. With dust jacket. With numerous in-text and full-page illustrations by Jill Bennett. Extremities a little bumped, adhesive residue on front pastedown, some foxing to edges and a few leaves; extremities of unclipped jacket a little rubbed, minor abrasions to rear panel, some damp staining to reverse: a very good copy in like jacket. Donald Sturrock, Storyteller: The Life of Roald Dahl, 2010.

Danny, the Champion of the World is a 1975 children's book by Roald Dahl. The plot centers on a young English boy named Danny and his father, William, who live in a Gypsy caravan fixing cars for a living and partake in poaching pheasants. It is one of Dahl's novels that is not based on a fantastical premise and tends to be considered one of his stories grounded more in reality.