Roald Dahl, a giant grump who loathed adoring fans

HE WAS the 20th century’s most famous storyteller renowned for classics such as James And The Giant Peach and Charlie And The Chocolate Factory.

However, despite his popularity among children, Roald Dahl had a darker side to his character — and rarely seen correspondence with his publisher Tom Maschler has surfaced which confirms his reputation as one of English literature’s most notoriously spiky authors.

Dahl makes a series of grumpy complaints about success and money, drinking too much and his own laziness.

In one nine-page letter, which is being sold for £3,000 by bookseller Peter Grogan, he moans about being hounded by his fans at his home.

‘ This house is becoming a place of pilgrimage . . . “Vee are from Holland. Vee haff come to look at your house.” ’

He also frets about relations with his publishing house Jonathan Cape while Maschler is away: ‘I [have] no one there to talk to any more.’

At least sales figures for Matilda — and plans to turn it into a musical — were keeping him buoyant: ‘ Four nice intelligent men came down here to lunch last week to talk about a [musical]. They are mad keen and they’ve got the money to do it.

‘There’s so much going on in the film world with the children’s books I can’t keep up with it.’

Another brief letter from 1983 thanks Maschler for a party invitation: ‘Everyone had a good time, especially Francis Bacon. It was a fine sight seeing young Lucy [Dahl’s daughter] bullying him into our car at the end — “Get in, man! Pull yourself together and just do as you’re told!” ’

The earliest letter — to Maschler’s daughter Hannah — apologises for a delay in producing a new book: ‘The trouble is I am getting a bit lazy, and I have my orchids to look after and sometimes I drink too much whisky so I can’t work.

‘But now you have made me feel guilty and so I think I had better pull up my socks and pick up my pencil and get down to it once again.’

Last month the writer’s family issued an unprecedented public apology for his anti-Semitism on the author’s official website.

AS THE health-conscious embark on New Year diets, even fitness guru Joe Wicks admits to some calorific weaknesses. ‘Marmalade on toast is my secret vice,’ he says. ‘Some days I can’t help having some just before bed. I need at least four slices to be satisfied, though.’