Matilda Read online

  For Michael and Lucy

  Some reviews of Matilda

  'Mischievous though she may be, there could hardly be a better heroine for today's children. Matilda is super-intelligent and, above all, a voracious reader!'

  - The Times

  'Matilda is the nation's favourite children's book, according to a poll of more than ten thousand people conducted by Waterstone's and BBC1's Bookworm

  programme' - Sunday Times

  'One of the most popular children's books ever' - Ottaker's Top Ten Favourite Children's Books survey

  'Roald Dahl and Quentin Blake have made an important and lasting contribution to children's literature'

  - Guardian

  Other books by Roald Dahl

  THE BFG

  BOY: TALES OF CHILDHOOD

  BOY and GOING SOLO

  CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY

  CHARLIE AND THE GREAT GLASS ELEVATOR

  THE COMPLETE ADVENTURES OF CHARLIE AND MR WILLY WONKA DANNY THE CHAMPION OF THE WORLD

  GEORGE'S MARVELLOUS MEDICINE

  GOING SOLO

  JAMES AND THE GIANT PEACH

  THE WITCHES

  For younger readers

  THE ENORMOUS CROCODILE

  ESIO TROT

  FANTASTIC MR FOX

  THE GIRAFFE AND THE PELLY AND ME

  THE MAGIC FINGER

  THE TWITS

  Picture books

  DIRTY BEASTS(with Quentin Blake)

  THE ENORMOUS CROCODILE(with Quentin Blake)

  THE GIRAFFE AND THE PELLY AND ME (with Quentin Blake)

  THE MINPINS (with Patrick Benson)

  REVOLTING RHYMES (with Quentin Blake)

  Plays

  THE BFG: PLAYS FOR CHILDREN (Adapted by David Wood)

  CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY: A PLAY(Adapted by Richard George)

  FANTASTIC MR FOX: A PLAY(Adapted by Sally Reid)

  JAMES AND THE GIANT PEACH: A PLAY (Adapted by Richard George)

  THE WITCHES: PLAYS FOR CHILDREN(Adapted by David Wood)

  Teenage fiction

  THE GREAT AUTOMATIC GRAMMATIZATOR AND OTHER STORIES

  RHYME STEW

  SKIN AND OTHER STORIES

  THE VICAR OF NIBBLESWICKE

  THE WONDERFUL STORY OF HENRY SUGAR AND SIX MORE

  ROALD DAHL

  Matilda

  Illustrated by Quentin Blake

  PUFFIN BOOKS

  PUFFIN BOOKS

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Penguin Putnam Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Books Australia Ltd, 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia

  Penguin Books Canada Ltd, 10 Alcorn Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4V 3B2

  Penguin Books India (P) Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi - 110 017, India

  Penguin Books (NZ) Ltd, Cnr Rosedale and Airborne Roads, Albany, Auckland, New Zealand

  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank 2196, South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  www.penguin.com

  First published by Johnathan Cape Ltd 1988

  Published in Puffin Books 1989

  Published in Puffin Modern Classics 2003

  9

  Text copyright (c) Roald Dahl Nominee Ltd, 1988

  Illustrations copyright (c) Quentin Blake, 1988

  Introduction copyright (c) Julia Eccleshare, 2003

  All rights reserved

  The author and publisher are grateful to the Trustees of the Estate of Dylan Thomas for permission to quote lines from 'In Country Sleep', from The Poems by Dylan Thomas, published by J. M. Dent & Sons

  Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  ISBN: 978-0-14-192945-3

  Introduction

  by Julia Eccleshare

  Puff in Modern Classics series editor

  How strange to be a child who loves books and reading, but who is criticized for it by her parents; how unusual to find a pupil who can do maths perfectly, yet is accused of cheating by her father when she answers a question correctly. Such a child is Matilda.

  Roald Dahl's Matilda is a story of enormous warmth, celebrating intelligence, good teaching and, above all, a love of reading. And all of it is conveyed with the hallmarks of Dahl's storytelling: larger than life characters, scenes of comic excess that are sometimes tinged with savage overtones and just a little bit of magic to allow for unusual possibilities.

  The characters - from Matilda's vile and despicable parents, Mr and Mrs Wormwood, and her villainous headmistress, the terrifying Miss Trunchbull, to the gloriously sweet-natured Miss Honey and Matilda - are as representative of the good and the bad as any of Dahl's creations. Their various faults are as ridiculous as their virtues are too good to be true.

  And yet, through them, Dahl does, more than entertain. Juxtaposing these extremes, especially the underhand dealings of the Wormwoods and the terrifying scenes of humiliation played out by Miss Trunchbull (only Dahl could turn a chocolate cake into a weapon of torture!), he makes a barbed commentary on some of the things that he most disliked about contemporary society. The bullying of children by adults stands at the top of the list.

  For a generation and more, Roald Dahl has consistently topped the polls of children's favourite authors. His ability to speak directly to his readers, siding with them against adults where necessary while entertaining them with magical possibilities, has given him a unique position as a creator of empowering fantasies.

  Contents

  The Reader of Books

  Mr Wormwood, the Great Car Dealer

  The Hat and the Superglue

  The Ghost

  Arithmetic

  The Platinum-blond Man

  Miss Honey

  The Trunchbull

  The Parents

  Throwing the Hammer

  Bruce Bogtrotter and the Cake

  Lavender

  The Weekly Test

  The First Miracle

  The Second Miracle

  Miss Honey's Cottage

  Miss Honey's Story

  The Names

  The Practice

  The Third Miracle

  A New Home

  The Reader of Books

  It's a funny thing about mothers and fathers. Even when their own child is the most disgusting little blister you could ever imagine, they still think that he or she is wonderful.

  Some parents go further. They become so blinded by adoration they manage to convince themselves their child has qualities of genius.

  Well, there is nothing very wrong with all this. It's the way of the world. It is only when the parents begin telling us about the brilliance of their own revolting offspring, that we start shouting, 'Bring us a basin! We're going to be sick!'

  School teachers suffer a good deal from having to listen to this sort of twaddle from proud parents, but they usually get their own back when the time comes to write the end-of-term reports. If I were a teacher I would cook up some real scorchers for the children of doting parents. 'Your son Maximilian,' I would write, 'is a total wash-out. I hope you have a family business you can push him into when he leaves school because he sure as heck won't get a job any
where else.' Or if I were feeling lyrical that day, I might write, 'It is a curious truth that grasshoppers have their hearing-organs in the sides of the abdomen. Your daughter Vanessa, judging by what she's learnt this term, has no hearing-organs at all.'

  I might even delve deeper into natural history and say, 'The periodical cicada spends six years as a grub underground, and no more than six days as a free creature of sunlight and air. Your son Wilfred has spent six years as a grub in this school and we are still waiting for him to emerge from the chrysalis.' A particularly poisonous little girl might sting me into saying, 'Fiona has the same glacial beauty as an iceberg, but unlike the iceberg she has absolutely nothing below the surface,' I think I might enjoy writing end-of-term reports for the stinkers in my class. But enough of that. We have to get on.

  Occasionally one comes across parents who take the opposite line, who show no interest at all in their children, and these of course are far worse than the doting ones. Mr and Mrs Wormwood were two such parents. They had a son called Michael and a daughter called Matilda, and the parents looked upon Matilda in particular as nothing more than a scab. A scab is something you have to put up with until the time comes when you can pick it off and flick it away Mr and Mrs Wormwood looked forward enormously to the time when they could pick their little daughter off and flick her away, preferably into the next county or even further than that.

  It is bad enough when parents treat ordinary children as though they were scabs and bunions, but it becomes somehow a lot worse when the child in question is extra- ordinary, and by that I mean sensitive and brilliant. Matilda was both of these things, but above all she was brilliant. Her mind was so nimble and she was so quick to learn that her ability should have been obvious even to the most half-witted of parents. But Mr and Mrs Wormwood were both so gormless and so wrapped up in their own silly little lives that they failed to notice anything unusual about their daughter. To tell the truth, I doubt they would have noticed had she crawled into the house with a broken leg.

  Matilda's brother Michael was a perfectly normal boy, but the sister, as I said, was something to make your eyes pop. By the age of one and a half her speech was perfect and she knew as many words as most grown-ups. The parents, instead of applauding her, called her a noisy chatterbox and told her sharply that small girls should be seen and not heard.

  By the time she was three, Matilda had taught herself to read by studying newspapers and magazines that lay around the house. At the age of four, she could read fast and well and she naturally began hankering after books. The only book in the whole of this enlightened household was something called Easy Cooking belonging to her mother, and when she had read this from cover to cover and had learnt all the recipes by heart, she decided she wanted something more interesting.

  'Daddy,' she said, 'do you think you could buy me a book?'

  'A book?' he said. 'What d'you want a flaming book for?'

  'To read, Daddy'

  'What's wrong with the telly, for heaven's sake? We've got a lovely telly with a twelve-inch screen and now you come asking for a book! You're getting spoiled, my girl!'

  Nearly every weekday afternoon Matilda was left alone in the house. Her brother (five years older than her) went to school. Her father went to work and her mother went out playing bingo in a town eight miles away. Mrs Wormwood was hooked on bingo and played it five afternoons a week. On the afternoon of the day when her father had refused to buy her a book, Matilda set out all by herself to walk to the public library in the village. When she arrived, she introduced herself to the librarian, Mrs Phelps. She asked if she might sit awhile and read a book. Mrs Phelps, slightly taken aback at the arrival of such a tiny girl unaccompanied by a parent, nevertheless told her she was very welcome.

  'Where are the children's books please?' Matilda asked.

  'They're over there on those lower shelves,' Mrs Phelps told her. 'Would you like me to help you find a nice one with lots of pictures in it?'

  'No, thank you,' Matilda said. 'I'm sure I can manage.'

  From then on, every afternoon, as soon as her mother had left for bingo, Matilda would toddle down to the library. The walk took only ten minutes and this allowed her two glorious hours sitting quietly by herself in a cosy corner devouring one book after another. When she had read every single children's book in the place, she started wandering round in search of something else.

  Mrs Phelps, who had been watching her with fascination for the past few weeks, now got up from her desk and went over to her. 'Can I help you, Matilda?' she asked.

  'I'm wondering what to read next,' Matilda said. 'I've finished all the children's books.'

  'You mean you've looked at the pictures?'

  'Yes, but I've read the books as well.'

  Mrs Phelps looked down at Matilda from her great height and Matilda looked right back up at her.

  'I thought some were very poor,' Matilda said, 'but others were lovely. I liked The Secret Garden best of all. It was full of mystery. The mystery of the room behind the closed door and the mystery of the garden behind the big wall.'

  Mrs Phelps was stunned. 'Exactly how old are you, Matilda?' she asked.

  'Four years and three months,' Matilda said.

  Mrs Phelps was more stunned than ever, but she had the sense not to show it. 'What sort of a book would you like to read next?' she asked.

  Matilda said, 'I would like a really good one that grown-ups read. A famous one. I don't know any names.'

  Mrs Phelps looked along the shelves, taking her time. She didn't quite know what to bring out. How, she asked herself, does one choose a famous grown-up book for a four-year-old girl? Her first thought was to pick a young teenager's romance of the kind that is written for fifteen-year-old school-girls, but for some reason she found herself instinctively walking past that particular shelf.

  'Try this,' she said at last. 'It's very famous and very good. If it's too long for you, just let me know and I'll find something shorter and a bit easier.'

  'Great Expectations,' Matilda read, 'by Charles Dickens. I'd love to try it.'

  I must be mad, Mrs Phelps told herself, but to Matilda she said, 'Of course you may try it.'

  Over the next few afternoons Mrs Phelps could hardly take her eyes from the small girl sitting for hour after hour in the big armchair at the far end of the room with the book on her lap. It was necessary to rest it on the lap because it was too heavy for her to hold up, which meant she had to sit leaning forward in order to read. And a strange sight it was, this tiny dark-haired person sitting there with her feet nowhere near touching the floor, totally absorbed in the wonderful adventures of Pip and old Miss Havisham and her cobwebbed house and by the spell of magic that Dickens the great story-teller had woven with his words. The only movement from the reader was the lifting of the hand every now and then to turn over a page, and Mrs Phelps always felt sad when the time came for her to cross the floor and say, 'It's ten to five, Matilda.'

  During the first week of Matilda's visits Mrs Phelps had said to her, 'Does your mother walk you down here every day and then take you home?'

  'My mother goes to Aylesbury every afternoon to play bingo,' Matilda had said. 'She doesn't know I come here.'

  'But that's surely not right,' Mrs Phelps said. 'I think you'd better ask her.'

  'I'd rather not,' Matilda said. 'She doesn't encourage reading books. Nor does my father.'

  'But what do they expect you to do every afternoon in an empty house?'

  'Just mooch around and watch the telly.'

  'I see.'

  'She doesn't really care what I do,' Matilda said a little sadly.

  Mrs Phelps was concerned about the child's safety on the walk through the fairly busy village High Street and the crossing of the road, but she decided not to interfere.

  Within a week, Matilda had finished Great Expectations which in that edition contained four hundred and eleven pages. 'I loved it,' she said to Mrs Phelps. 'Has Mr Dickens written any others?'


  'A great number,' said the astounded Mrs Phelps. 'Shall I choose you another?'

  Over the next six months, under Mrs Phelps's watchful and compassionate eye, Matilda read the following books:

  Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens

  Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens

  Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

  Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

  Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy

  Gone to Earth by Mary Webb

  Kim by Rudyard Kipling

  The Invisible Man by H. G. Wells

  The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway

  The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner

  The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

  The Good Companions by J. B. Priestley

  Brighton Rock by Graham Greene

  Animal Farm by George Orwell

  It was a formidable list and by now Mrs Phelps was filled with wonder and excitement, but it was probably a good thing that she did not allow herself to be completely carried away by it all. Almost anyone else witnessing the achievements of this small child would have been tempted to make a great fuss and shout the news all over the village and beyond, but not so Mrs Phelps. She was someone who minded her own business and had long since discovered it was seldom worth while to interfere with other people's children.

  'Mr Hemingway says a lot of things I don't understand,' Matilda said to her. 'Especially about men and women. But I loved it all the same. The way he tells it I feel I am right there on the spot watching it all happen.'

  'A fine writer will always make you feel that,' Mrs Phelps said. 'And don't worry about the bits you can't understand. Sit back and allow the words to wash around you, like music.'

  'I will, I will.'

  'Did you know,' Mrs Phelps said, 'that public libraries like this allow you to borrow books and take them home?'

  'I didn't know that,' Matilda said. 'Could I do it?'

  'Of course,' Mrs Phelps said. 'When you have chosen the book you want, bring it to me so I can make a note of it and it's yours for two weeks. You can take more than one if you wish.'