Devotes a large chunk of his book to Dahl's Norwegian family and schooldays; their combination of warmth, tragedy, inspiration and savagery is brilliantly evoked... [His account] makes you feel grudging admiration for a bully whose self-belief was, in a way, heroic - Sunday Times

Superb psychological study of a literary genius... Matthew Dennison's biography of Roald Dahl manages to peel back the layers of an infamously complex man - Sunday Business Post

Matthew Dennison's streamlined text clips along with an economy befitting Dahl's brusque manner... Dennison presents a rounded picture [...] and gets to Dahl's flawed, human core - Country Life

A well-researched, compact book - Observer

This book is riveting, and immaculately written - Sunday Telegraph

Brace yourself for Dahl mania... Documenting the multi-layered life of Roald Dahl as a creative maverick who created some of the most well-loved characters in literature, this biography reevaluates Dahl by examining his surviving relics - Tatler

A crisply done and well-judged survey of the outline of the life - TLS

[An] impeccably balanced new biography - Mail on Sunday

An intriguing read about a vastly talented but morally weak man - The Anglo-Celt

Dennison recasts the narrative of the daredevil pilot and spy-turned-author as a rule-breaker, romantic and ultimately a child's friend - School House

An elegant new biography... capturing [Dahl's] grandiose, tragedy-specked life. - The New York Times

From one of our finest contemporary biographers, a concise life of Roald Dahl - much-loved author and creator of numerous iconic literary characters.

Matthew Dennison is the author of nine critically acclaimed works of non-fiction, including Behind the Mask: The Life of Vita Sackville-West, a Book of the Year in The Times, Spectator, Independent and Observer, and the much-praised Eternal Boy, a life of Kenneth Grahame, and his biography of Her late Majesty The Queen, published by Head of Zeus.