(Book Jacket Status: Jacketed)<br><br>The only hardcover edition of Roald Dahl's stories for adults, the <i>Collected Stories</i> amply showcases his singular gifts as a fabulist and a born storyteller.<br><br>Later known for his immortal children's books, including <i>Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, James and the Giant Peach, </i>and <i>The BFG, </i>Dahl<i> </i>also had a genius for adult short fiction, which he wrote throughout his life. Whether fictionalizing his dramatic exploits as a Royal Air Force pilot during World War II or concocting the ingeniously plotted fables that were dramatized on television as <i>Tales of the Unexpected</i>, Dahl was brilliant at provoking in his readers the overwhelming desire to know what happens next—and at satisfying that desire in ways that feel both surprising and inevitable.<br><br>Filled with devilish plot twists, his tales display a tantalizing blend of macabre humor and the absurdly grotesque. From “The Landlady,” about an unusual boardinghouse that features a small but very permanent clientele, to “Pig,” a brutally funny look at vegetarianism, to “Man from the South,” in which a fanatical gambler does his betting with hammer, nails, and a butcher's knife, Dahl's creations amuse and shock us in equal measure, gleefully reminding us of what might lurk beneath the surface of the ordinary.