The 6 books that turned Roald Dahl into an insatiable reader
Roald Dahl was born to Norwegian parents in Wales ninety-seven years ago today. He became one of the world’s best selling authors. Famed for darkly humorous children’s classics like James and the Giant Peach, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and The Witches, he first started writing during the Forties while serving as a fighter pilot in North Africa.
His adventurous life influenced his stories and novels. In his autobiographical book, Boy: Tales of Childhood, Dahl explains how his English teacher, Mrs. O’Connor, influenced him with a simple reading list.
“In two and a half hours, we grew to love Langland and his Piers Plowman. The next Saturday, it was Chaucer, and we loved him, too. Even rather difficult fellows like Milton and Dryden and Pope all became thrilling when Mrs O’Connor told us about their lives and read parts of their work to us aloud. And the result of all this, for me at any rate, was that by the age of 13 I had become intensely aware of the vast heritage of literature that had been built up in England over the centuries. I also became an avid and insatiable reader of good writing.”
Dahl’s writing made countless children and adults insatiable readers. These are five free e-books from Mrs O’Connors list, plus a book of Norwegian fairy tales his mother read to him.
The Vision and Creed of Piers Ploughman
By William Langland
Read The Vision and Creed of Piers Ploughman here.
Paradise Lost
By John Milton
The Canterbury Tales, and Other Poems
By Geoffrey Chaucer
Read The Canterbury Tales here.
The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Volume 1
By John Dryden
Read The Poetical Works of John Dryden here.
An Essay on Man; Moral Essays and Satires
By Alexander Pope
