As Tim Burton's remake of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory hits the screens, Ayesha Christie trawls the web for all you need to know about the author of the book and his creation

1. Johnny Depp stars as the darkly eccentric Willy Wonka in Tim Burton's Tim Burton's remake of Roald Dahl's hugely popular Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

2. The 1971 film Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, which starred Gene Wilder as the outlandishly droll confectioner, was a great disappointment to Roald Dahl. Deviations from the book irritated the author, who would have preferred to see Spike Milligan in the role.

3. The Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre opened in Buckinghamshire last month. Interactive films and displays tell the story of Dahl's life and works, and visitors are invited to decorate a chocolate bar in the Inventing Room on Chocolate Wednesdays.

4. In his autobiography, Boy: Tales of Childhood, Dahl recalls his time at Repton public school. Every so often, Cadbury would send out new chocolate inventions for the schoolboys to sample, fuelling Dahl's dreams of a chocolate factory.

5. In Roald Dahl's original book, published in 1964, the Oompa Loompas were black, jungle-dwelling pygmies who lived on beetles and foul-tasting caterpillars, and were constantly in danger of being eaten by Whangdoodles. Imported by Willy Wonka to replace his white factory workers, the Oompa Loompas were content with their new circumstances. But a decade later, critics complained that the book had colonial and racist overtones, causing a revised edition to be published in which the Oompa Loompas were described as dwarfish hippies with rosy-white skin and golden-brown hair.

6. In 1971, Roald Dahl was surprised to receive a letter from a real-life Willy Wonka, a postman from Nebraska. Ensuing correspondence between the two revealed that Dahl's inspiration for the name of his fictional creation came from a boomerang his elder brother had made for him when he was a boy, which he named Skilly Wonka.

7. Though best remembered for his children's books, Dahl also wrote popular adult fiction as well as the screenplay for You Only Live Twice, the fifth film in the James Bond series that starred Sean Connery as Agent 007.

8. Roald Dahl shared his birthday, September 13, with Milton Hershey, founder of the Hershey chocolate company.

9. After Dahl's death, his wife, Felicity, compiled a cookbook of his recipes that included Bird Pie, Hot Frogs and Lickable Wallpaper. It was called Roald Dahl's Revolting Recipes and was, like so many Dahl books, illustrated by Quentin Blake.

10. Roald Dahl's granddaughter, Sophie Dahl, served as the inspiration for the eponymous character in The Big Friendly Giant. The actress and model seems to have inherited the literary talents of her grandfather, receiving flattering reviews for her debut novel, an adult fairytale entitled The Man with the Dancing Eyes.