FIRST EDITION OF DAHL’S MATILDA
DAHL, Roald. Matilda. London: Jonathan Cape, (1988). Octavo, original red cloth gilt, original dust jacket. $1000.
First edition of Dahl’s popular story of a precocious young girl and her clever revenge on her callous parents and cruel headmistress, illustrated by Quentin Blake.
"Dahl seems to have made an art form of the rediscovery that children tend to warm to the sorts of horror that make lesser mortals (adults) squirm with displeasure… He is undeniably special" (Connolly, 104). Time magazine included Matilda in its 2015 list of the "100 Best Young Adult Books of All Time," and the BBC ranked it at number 10 in their 2023 "100 Greatest Children's Books of All Time" poll. The book was the basis for a 1996 movie as well as a 2010 musical, which in turn became a film in 2022.
A fine copy.