Books

First edition, first printing, with the five-line colophon. The publisher wrote to Dahl on 5 July 1960 stating, "If this doesn't become a little classic, I can only say that I think you will not have been dealt with justly" (Treglown, p. 124). An early advert for the book noted "one is tempted to say that not since Alice has there been such a wonderland. The difference is that James is all boy and what transpires in the story is anything but Victorian". Described as "rude, naughty, anti-adult, creepy, and sometimes cruel" (ODNB), James and the Giant Peach was adapted into a film of the same name in 1996, which was nominated for the Academy Award for "Best Music, Original Musical or Comedy Score" the following year. There have been numerous stage adaptations and one musical version. Quarto. Original red cloth, spine lettered in gilt, design to front cover in blind, green endpapers, top edge yellow. With pictorial dust jacket. Colour frontispiece, 4 colour plates, tinted plate, 19 illustrations to text, of which 10 are tinted, all by Nancy Ekholm Burkert. Head and foot of spine very slightly bumped; hint of toning to edges of price-clipped jacket: near-fine in like jacket. The New York Times, 26 October 1961; Jeremy Treglown, Roald Dahl: A Biography, 1994.

James and the Giant Peach is a popular children's novel written by British author Roald Dahl. It was first published in 1961 and tells the story of a young English orphan boy who enters a gigantic, magical peach, and has a wild and surreal cross-world adventure with seven magically-altered garden bugs he meets along the way. The novel is known for its whimsical narrative, imaginative description, and creative characters.