New Criterion, February 1st, 2007
Roald Dahl The Collected Stories of Roald Dahl. Everyman's Library, 888 pages, $30
I was surprised to learn, from Jeremy Treglown's 1994 biography of Roald Dahl, that the British short-story writer and now-beloved children's author was in his younger days a fan of Damon Runyon. I shouldn't have been. Dahl and Runyon both belong to a grand transatlantic brotherhood of writers (which also includes P. G. Wodehouse) who contributed to the literature of gambling. Many Dahl stories literally concern a bet, whether it be a man placing his life savings on the time his ship will arrive in port ("A D...
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