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Authors: Roald Dahl

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The BFG

BOOK: The BFG
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Other books by Roald Dahl

 

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
MATILDA
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 TWITS: PLAYS FOR CHILDREN (
Adapted by David Wood
)
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 SUCAR AND SIX MORE

 

 

 

 

PUFFIN BOOKS
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA
Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)
Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd)
Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd)
Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi – 110 017, India
Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd)
Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rose bank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa
Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
puffinbooks.com

 

First published by Jonathan Cape Ltd 1982
First published in the USA by Farrar, Straus and Giroux 1982
Published in Puffin Books 1984
This edition published 2007
2
Text copyright © Roald Dahl Nominee Ltd, 1982
Illustrations copyright © Quentin Blake, 1982
All rights reserved

 

The moral right of the author and illustrator has been asserted

 

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 it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being which 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: 978-0-14-193013-8
For Olivia
20 April 1955–17 November 1962
Contents
List of Characters
The Witching Hour
Who?
The Snatch
The Cave
The BFG
The Giants
The Marvellous Ears
Snozzcumbers
The Bloodbottler
Frobscottle and Whizzpoppers
Journey to Dream Country
Dream-Catching
A Trogglehumper for the Fleshlumpeater
Dreams
The Great Plan
Mixing the Dream
Journey to London
The Palace
The Queen
The Royal Breakfast
The Plan
Capture!
Feeding Time
The Author
The characters in this book are:
HUMANS:
THE QUEEN OF ENGLAND
MARY, the Queen’s maid
MR TIBBS, the Palace butler
THE HEAD OF THE ARMY
THE HEAD OF THE AIR FORCE
And
,
of course
, SOPHIE,
an orphan
GIANTS:
THE FLESHLUMPEATER
THE BONECRUNCHER
THE MANHUGGER
THE CHILDCHEWER
THE MEATDRIPPER
THE GIZZARDGULPER
THE MAIDMASHER
THE BLOODBOTTLER
THE BUTCHER BOY
And
,
of course
, THE BFG
The Witching Hour
Sophie couldn’t sleep.
A brilliant moonbeam was slanting through a gap in the curtains. It was shining right on to her pillow.
The other children in the dormitory had been asleep for hours.
Sophie closed her eyes and lay quite still. She tried very hard to doze off.
It was no good. The moonbeam was like a silver blade slicing through the room on to her face.
The house was absolutely silent. No voices came up from downstairs. There were no footsteps on the floor above either.
The window behind the curtain was wide open, but nobody was walking on the pavement outside. No cars went by on the street. Not the tiniest sound could be heard anywhere. Sophie had never known such a silence.

 

Perhaps, she told herself, this was what they called the witching hour.
The witching hour, somebody had once whispered to her, was a special moment in the middle of the night when every child and every grown-up was in a deep deep sleep, and all the dark things came out from hiding and had the world to themselves.

 

The moonbeam was brighter than ever on Sophie’s pillow. She decided to get out of bed and close the gap in the curtains.
You got punished if you were caught out of bed after lights-out. Even if you said you had to go to the lavatory, that was not accepted as an excuse and they punished you just the same. But there was no one about now, Sophie was sure of that.
She reached out for her glasses that lay on the chair beside her bed. They had steel rims and very thick lenses, and she could hardly see a thing without them. She put them on, then she slipped out of bed and tiptoed over to the window.

 

When she reached the curtains, Sophie hesitated. She longed to duck underneath them and lean out of the window to see what the world looked like now that the witching hour was at hand.
She listened again. Everywhere it was deathly still.
The longing to look out became so strong she couldn’t resist it. Quickly, she ducked under the curtains and leaned out of the window.
In the silvery moonlight, the village street she knew so well seemed completely different. The houses looked bent and crooked, like houses in a fairy tale. Everything was pale and ghostly and milky-white.
Across the road, she could see Mrs Rance’s shop, where you bought buttons and wool and bits of elastic. It didn’t look real. There was something dim and misty about that too.
Sophie allowed her eye to travel further and further down the street.
BOOK: The BFG
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