Roald Dahl Timeline

Roald Dahl 51

1920 Roald Dahl's father and sister die Within weeks of each other, when Dahl was three His sister Astri died of appendicitis at seven, and his father Harald of pneumonia weeks later.
1924 The Great Mouse Plot Llandaff sweet shop, age eight Dahl and four friends put a dead mouse in a jar of gobstoppers, and were caned for it.
1929 Roald Dahl starts at Repton School Derbyshire boarding school, age 13 Cadbury sent boxes of new chocolate to Repton for pupils to test - the seed of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
1934 Roald Dahl joins the Shell Petroleum Company Trained in Britain, then posted to East Africa He chose a job over university and ended up running Shell business in Tanganyika with two colleagues.
1939 Roald Dahl is commissioned into the King's African Rifles Dar es Salaam, as war approached He commanded a platoon of Askari troops rounding up Germans living in the territory.
1939 Roald Dahl joins the Royal Air Force Nairobi - accepted with sixteen others, of whom three survived the war After a 600-mile drive from Dar es Salaam he was taken on for flight training.
1940 Roald Dahl is commissioned as a pilot officer RAF Habbaniya, Iraq Six months on Hawker Harts, then judged ready for a squadron.
1940 Roald Dahl crashes in the Libyan desert Skull fractured, nose smashed, blind for six weeks Sent to the wrong location and low on fuel, he tried to land in the desert and hit a boulder.
1941 Roald Dahl is passed fit to fly again Discharged from the naval hospital in Alexandria He rejoined 80 Squadron, by then flying Hurricanes in the Greek campaign.
1941 Roald Dahl's first aerial combat Over Chalcis - one Junkers Ju 88 shot down Flying alone, he attacked six bombers and downed one, then another the next day.
1941 The Battle of Athens Five of twelve Hurricanes shot down Dahl flew alongside Pat Pattle, the highest-scoring British Commonwealth ace, who was killed that day.
1941 Roald Dahl is invalided home Blackouts and severe headaches from the crash He was sent back to Britain and posted to a training camp at Uxbridge.
1942 Roald Dahl is sent to Washington as assistant air attaché British Embassy - speeches, parties and intelligence He also passed intelligence to William Stephenson's British Security Coordination and worked alongside Ian Fleming.
1942 Roald Dahl's first published work Shot Down Over Libya, in the Saturday Evening Post C. S. Forester asked him for notes on his crash and published what Dahl wrote, almost unchanged.
1943 The Gremlins His first children's book Mischievous creatures from RAF folklore. Walt Disney optioned it for a film that was never made.
1946 Over to You Ten stories of flyers and flying His first short story collection, drawn straight from the war.
1946 Roald Dahl leaves the RAF Invalided out as a squadron leader Five confirmed aerial victories made him a flying ace.
1948 Sometime Never: A Fable for Supermen His first novel A darker reworking of the gremlins, and one of the first post-war novels about nuclear war.
1953 Someone Like You Macabre short stories for adults His first best-seller, and the first of three Edgar Awards.
1953 Roald Dahl marries Patricia Neal Trinity Church, New York The marriage lasted thirty years and produced five children.
1954 Roald Dahl moves into Gipsy House Great Missenden, Buckinghamshire His home for the rest of his life. He wrote in a hut in the garden, modelled on Dylan Thomas's.
1959 Kiss Kiss Eleven more stories with twist endings The collection that sealed his reputation as a writer of adult short fiction.
1960 Theo Dahl is injured by a taxi Four months old, in New York City Dahl helped design the Wade-Dahl-Till valve for hydrocephalus, later used on nearly 3,000 children.
1961 James and the Giant Peach His first novel written for children Written for his own children at bedtime, and the start of the career he is remembered for.
1962 Olivia Dahl dies of measles encephalitis Aged seven Dahl was left, in his words, limp with despair, and became a lifelong campaigner for immunisation.
1964 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Willy Wonka, the golden tickets and the Oompa-Loompas Inspired by the Cadbury test boxes at Repton. His best-known book.
1965 Patricia Neal suffers three burst aneurysms While pregnant with their fifth child Dahl ran her rehabilitation himself - she had to learn to speak and walk again, and returned to acting.
1966 The Magic Finger A girl who can punish grown-ups with a look A short book about a family of hunters who wake up with wings.
1967 You Only Live Twice Screenplay for the James Bond film Dahl adapted the novel by Ian Fleming, whom he had known in wartime Washington.
1968 Chitty Chitty Bang Bang Screenplay, from another Ian Fleming novel His second and last big screen adaptation of Fleming.
1970 Fantastic Mr Fox Boggis, Bunce and Bean, outwitted underground A class-conscious fable about three rich farmers and one clever fox.
1971 Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory The film Dahl disowned He objected to the focus on Wonka over Charlie and refused further adaptations in his lifetime.
1972 Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator The sequel, in orbit Charlie and Wonka leave the factory and meet the Vermicious Knids.
1975 Danny, the Champion of the World Written in the gypsy caravan in his garden A boy, his father and a poaching raid on a rich neighbour's pheasants.
1977 The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More Seven stories, part memoir Filmed by Wes Anderson in 2023 with Ralph Fiennes playing Dahl himself.
1978 The Enormous Crocodile For younger readers, illustrated by Quentin Blake The start of the long partnership with Blake that shaped how Dahl's books look.
1979 – 1988 Tales of the Unexpected ITV anthology series, 1979-1988 Dahl introduced the early episodes on camera. When his own stories ran out, others were written in his style.
1980 The Twits The hairiest, nastiest couple in children's fiction Mr and Mrs Twit, their tricks on each other, and the upside-down revenge of the Muggle-Wumps.
1981 George's Marvellous Medicine A grandmother blown up to the size of a farmhouse Dahl said the Drink Me scene in Alice in Wonderland gave him the idea.
1982 The BFG Dedicated to his daughter Olivia The Big Friendly Giant catches dreams in bottles. Dahl called it his own favourite.
1983 Roald Dahl marries Felicity Crosland After an eleven-year affair and a divorce from Patricia Neal They married at Brixton Town Hall and she moved into Gipsy House.
1983 The Witches Witches, a boy turned into a mouse, and a grandmother The grandmother was modelled on Dahl's own mother and her Norwegian stories.
1984 Boy: Tales of Childhood The sweet shop, the canings, the Norwegian summers The first volume of autobiography, and the source of most of what is known about his schooldays.
1986 Going Solo Shell in Africa, then the RAF The second volume: the desert crash, Greece, and the end of his flying.
1988 Matilda A girl who reads Dickens at four and fights Miss Trunchbull Mrs Pratchett of the sweet shop fed into Trunchbull. It has been filmed twice and staged as a musical.
1990 Esio Trot The last book published in his lifetime A lonely old man, a tortoise and an anadrome - unusually gentle for Dahl.
1990 Roald Dahl dies in Oxford Aged 74, of myelodysplastic syndrome Buried at Great Missenden with his snooker cues, burgundy, chocolates, HB pencils and a power saw.
2002 Roald Dahl Plass Cardiff Bay's Oval Basin renamed Plass is Norwegian for square, a nod to the parents who emigrated to Cardiff.
2005 The Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre opens Great Missenden Around 50,000 foreign visitors a year travel to the village where he wrote.
2021 Netflix buys the Roald Dahl Story Company A deal worth more than 500 million pounds Netflix took the rights to the whole catalogue, and began adapting it.
2023 Puffin edits Dahl's books, then reverses course Hundreds of changes by sensitivity readers After a public row, Puffin kept the edited versions but reissued the originals as the Classic Collection.