Roald Dahl let children thrive in a world of whimsy - of "Twits" and "whizzpop" - but neither did he shield them from reality: his stories were always so unsentimental, so macabre in their attitude. Whimsy was a vehicle to teach the ways of the world.

To adults, he presented things simply as they were. Little known, in comparison to Matilda or Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Dahl enjoyed a parallel career penning (largely) macabre and twist-filled short stories for adults.

For the most part, they appeared far away from the peering eyes of children in editions of Collier's, Ladies Home Journal, Harper's, Playboy, or The New Yorker; he did, however, publish several anthologies of his works.

1960's Kiss Kiss collects some of his most morbid work together, an amplification of the darkest parts of his stories for children; again and again, we see nasty surprises and untimely ends for our characters. Some are more deserved, others far less so.

A harassed wife leaves her husband to die in a trapped elevator. A bed and breakfast owner poisons her guests and stuffs them. A mother prays for her frail infant son's survival, only for the revelation the child is Adolf Hitler.

A beekeeper feeds his child royal jelly, discovering the child has grown "fat and white and comatose, like some gigantic grub that was approaching the end of its larval life and would soon emerge into the world complete with mandibles and wings."

In pictures: Roald Dahl's most enduring characters Show all 12 1 /12 In pictures: Roald Dahl's most enduring characters In pictures: Roald Dahl's most enduring characters Willy Wonka from 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory' Willy Wonka (pictured being played by Gene Wilder in 1967) is a bizarre and slightly unsettling man but who can say no to that delicious chocolate? Getty In pictures: Roald Dahl's most enduring characters The Oompa Loompas from 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory' Despite the characters' questionable evolution from being African pygmies in early editions of the novel, the Oompa Loompas were so fantastical they captured the imagination of generations. The first film's version of the characters are still a popular fancy dress theme. In pictures: Roald Dahl's most enduring characters Veruca Salt from 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory' The girl who "wants it now" is so incredibly vile she ended up in the rubbish after being judged a bad nut by Willy Wonka's squirrels. An American alternative rock band even took her name. YouTube In pictures: Roald Dahl's most enduring characters The Twits from 'The Twits' Mr and Mrs Twit are horrible, hideous and hateful, coating trees with glue to catch birds to at. But the Roly-Poly Bird and Muggle-Wumps teach them a lesson in the end. Quentin Blake/House of Illustration In pictures: Roald Dahl's most enduring characters James from 'James and the Giant Peach' James is beaten and starved by his cruel aunts after his parents are eaten by an escaped rhino but eventually gets to go on an adventure with the friends he has always waited for on his magic peach, ending up on the top of the Empire State Building. In pictures: Roald Dahl's most enduring characters Matilda from 'Matilda' Every little girl who read 'Matilda' wondered what it would be like to be the main character. Apart from th abusive family, the telekinesis must be endless fun. In pictures: Roald Dahl's most enduring characters Miss Trunchbull from 'Matilda' Miss Trunchbull, played by Pam Ferris in the 1996 film, is the aunt and headmistress of every child's worst nightmares. Just think of poor Bruce Bogtrotter and that cake. YouTube In pictures: Roald Dahl's most enduring characters The Big Friendly Giant from 'The BFG' A 24-foot-tall BFG works giving out good dreams to children and saves them all from people-eating giants. Shame about the snozzcumbers. In pictures: Roald Dahl's most enduring characters The Grand High Witch from 'The Witches' The Grand High Witch, seen here in the film, must be one of Dahl's most terrifying creations. Turning children into slugs and squishing them, she wanted to destroy them all, she had no hair or toes and claws for hands. In pictures: Roald Dahl's most enduring characters Mr Fox from 'Fantastic Mr Fox' Mr Fox outsmarts those silly farmers, feeding his family by killing their chickens and avoiding starvation. In pictures: Roald Dahl's most enduring characters George from 'George's Marvellous Medicine' Some people would say that swapping your gran's medicine with poison isn't ok but that isn't the point here. YouTube In pictures: Roald Dahl's most enduring characters Grandma from 'George's Marvellous Medicine' Grandma was quite a character until she vanished: 'She was selfish grumpy old woman. She had pale brown teeth and a small pucker-up mouth like a dog's bottom.' YouTube



NPR's Zoe Chace once described what a strange, and profound effect, coming across Kiss Kiss as a child had on her. "Reading Kiss Kiss is one of the first times I can remember a real-life truth staring back at me from a book," she stated. "I hadn't yet thought about the nasty tricks adults play on each other just to hurt each other. Particularly, married adults who aren't in love and who might know the others weakness best."

1974's Switch Bitch, meanwhile, collects together four stories of sexual indiscretion published for Playboy. Two of the stories, The Visitor and Bitch, centre on the character of Uncle Oswald, whose elaborate misadventures are documented in a series of diary entries.

However, most familiar will be Dahl's Tales of the Unexpected, which includes some entries from Kiss Kiss, published in 1979; a TV show of the same name aired on ITV between 1979 and 1988, adapting many of Dahl's short stories and featuring introductions from the author himself.

Roald Dahl's best quotes

The anthology notably includes Lamb to the Slaughter, which was also adapted for TV for an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents; it sees a wife murder her husband with a frozen leg of lamb, which she then cooks and serves to the police as a way of destroying the evidence.