Books

First edition, first impression, inscribed by the author in the year of publication, "To Jonathan with love Roald Dahl, Dec. 1980". The inscription is written on the rear free endpaper upside-down, in keeping with the topsy-turvy rear panel of the dust jacket. The jacket blurb commences, "Mr and Mrs Twit are dreadful". Dahl wrote this tale as a deliberate reaction to the typical saccharine story for children he thought flooded the market. In a letter to Dahl about The Twits, his editor agreed: "I like it VERY MUCH... You're right: what we want (or should want) for these little ones is stuff with meat, not the yuchy [sic] sweetly pretty material we're exposed to" (Sturrock, p. 504). Octavo. Original red boards, spine lettered in gilt. With dust jacket. Illustrated throughout by Quentin Blake. Internally fresh; jacket spine sunned, panels bright, a little marked and creased, a couple of nicks and one short closed tear, unclipped: a near-fine copy in very good jacket. Donald Sturrock, Storyteller: The Authorized Biography of Roald Dahl, 2010.

The Twits is a humorous children's book by Roald Dahl, first published in 1980. It tells the story of Mr. and Mrs. Twit, a disgusting couple who enjoy playing mean tricks on each other and keeping a family of monkeys, the Muggle-Wumps, as prisoners.