Going Solo [Signed First Edition]

19 Union Square West, New York: Farrar, Strauss, Giroux, 1986. Stated at copyright page: "First American edition, 1986". Beautifully signed by Roald Dahl on custom Farrar Straus Giroux bookplate tipped-in at half-title page: "Roald Dahl". Very attractive. Unique partial cream colored boards with royal blue extra-wide cloth spine wrap, gilt spine titles, light shelf wear. Pages near fine, no writing. Original dust wrapper, near fine; clipped, protected in new clear sleeve. Front panel features jacket painting by Sir Matthew Smith, 1942, from Dahl's collection. Beautifully illustrated throughout and at endpapers w/classic black & white collage snapshots of Dahl, WWII, family and friends. A near fine first edition in original wrapper. Everyone who has entered 'the brilliantly colored, sometimes grotesque and sometimes magical world Roald Dahl conjures will be longing to learn what happens to the supreme storyteller in Going Solo. A tale of deadly snakes on the ground and daring deeds in the air, African safaris and encounters with the Hun, told with all the appeal which has made Dahl one of the world's best-loved writers. In the autumn of 1938 Dahl sets off to work in Africa aboard a paint-peeling tub full of the dottiest fellow passengers imaginable. He falls in love with Tanganyika: a wonderful, beautiful, exciting country, plentifully covered with exotic wild animals - some of them best kept at a considerable distance. The green and black mambas, Dahl learns, make tricky opponents. Trickier still are the human predators, the Huns, who are trying to take over the world. Britain declares war on Germany and after temporary duty as an army officer, Dahl signs up with the RAF. It is impossible to imagine a more exciting or vivid account of learning to fly a fighter plane and take it up to dice with the enemy. A disastrous detour delays him for six months, but then, with all six foot six inches scrunched into the cockpit like a pretzel, young Dahl eventually takes his place in the heavily depleted 80th Squadron, consisting of a mere fifteen fighter pilots and their Hurricanes who have been ordered to provide cover for the entire British Expeditionary Force in Greece. In Dahl's case this insanely doomed venture is undertaken with minimal flying experience and no combat training whatsoever. How close we came to never meeting Charlie and his Chocolate Factory, Danny, the BFG, and Uncle Oswald, among his many other classics, is readily apparent. If you want to discover how a snake-man avoids a poisonous bite, what to do if you find yourself in the mouth of a lion and where Rudolph Valentino comes into it all, plunge into the adventurous pages of Going Solo. As Hazel Rochman in the New York Times Book Review declared of Roald Dahl: 'the autobiographical stories are as frightening and funny as his fiction'. What could be higher praise than that? Printed in the United States of America. 208 pages. Insured post.. Signed by Author. First Edition. Hard Cover. Fine/Fine. 8vo - over 7¾ - 9¾" Tall.