Description

“SHIVERINGLY ENJOYABLE”: KISS KISS, SIGNED BY ROALD DAHL

DAHL, Roald. Kiss Kiss. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1960. Octavo, original pale lavender cloth, original dust jacket.

First edition of Dahl’s third short story collection for adults, including the story “The Landlady,” signed by Dahl.

Best known as a children’s author, Dahl was also a prolific short story writer, publishing primarily in American magazines, including The New Yorker, Esquire, Playboy and Harper’s. “Most of Dahl’s early writing was for adults. He specialized in wartime stories and macabre tales with surprise endings, or what the British call ‘a twist in the tail.’ In a typical story, a wife kills her husband with a frozen leg of lamb, then cooks the murder weapon and serves it to police investigators? Dahl’s adult stories were crisply, shiveringly enjoyable—rather like Twilight Zone episodes” (Margaret Talbot, The New Yorker). This, his third collection of stories, includes the 1959 Edgar Award-winning story “The Landlady.”

Interior fine; very minor fading to extremities of publisher’s cloth, light foxing to dust jacket flaps. A near-fine copy, scarce signed.