Roald Dahl was born on the 13th September 1916, in Llandaff, Cardiff, Wales, UK, and was a British novelist, screenwriter, poet, and fighter pilot, but best known as a children’s book author with such stories as “The Gremlins” (1943), “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” (1964), “Fantastic Mr Fox” (1970), and “Matilda” (1988). Dahl won the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement in 1983 and the British Book Awards’ Children’s Author of the Year in 1990. His career started in 1942, and ended with his passing in 1990.
Have you ever wondered how rich Roald Dahl was at the time of his death? According to authoritative sources, it has been estimated that Dahl’s net worth was as high as $10 million, an amount earned largely through his successful career as a writer.
Roald Dahl Net Worth $10 Million
Roald Dahl was a son of Harald Dahl and Sofie Magdalene Dahl, Norwegian parents who immigrated to the UK from Sarpsborg, Norway and married in 1911. He grew up in Wales with his three sisters and went to the Cathedral School in Llandaff before being transferred to the St Peter’s in Weston-super-Mare, a boarding school in England. In 1929, Roald moved to Repton School in Derbyshire, where he played a number of sports, including football, golf, cricket, and was a captain of the squash team.
In 1934 Dahl started working for the Shell Petroleum Company, and was stationed in Mombasa, Kenya, and then in Dar-es-Salaam, Tanganyika (now Tanzania). In August 1939 Roald was commissioned a lieutenant in the King’s African Rifles, and the following November he joined the Royal Air Force (RAF), and trained in Kenya and Iraq. In September 1940, he was forced to land in the Libyan desert, crashing and fracturing his skull and was temporarily blinded. The next year, he took part in the “Battle of Athens” when the RAF collided with German air crafts. Roald was shipped home in 1942 and then he became the assistant air attaché at the British Embassy in Washington, D.C. He ultimately honourably discharged in 1946, as an ace – five aircraft shot down – and as a Wing Commander.
In 1942, Dahl published his first short story called “A Piece of Cake” after The Saturday Evening Post bought it for $1,000. In 1943, he wrote his first novel entitled “The Gremlins”, while he also continued with short stories such as “Beware of the Dog” (1944) and “Man from the South”, before publishing his second novel “Sometime Never: A Fable for Supermen” (1948). In the ‘50s, Dahl continued to work with such stories as “Poison” (1950), “Dip in the Pool” (1952), “Skin” (1952), “Lamb to the Slaughter” (1953), and “Nunc Dimittis” (1953). Roald also wrote, “Edward the Conqueror” (1953), “Parson’s Pleasure” (1958), “The Landlady” (1959), and “Genesis and Catastrophe: A True Story” (1959).
In the ‘60s, Dahl wrote three more novels: “James and the Giant Peach” (1961), “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” (1964), and “The Magic Finger” (1966). In 1970, he published “Fantastic Mr Fox”, while two years after, Roald wrote “Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator”. By the end of the ‘70s, Dahl had released two children’s and one adult book: “Danny, the Champion of the World “ (1975), “The Enormous Crocodile” (1978), and “My Uncle Oswald” (1979). From then until the moment of his death, Dahl published only children books such as “The Twits” (1980), “The Witches” (1983), and “Matilda” (1988).
Roald also wrote several television and movie scripts, including “You Only Live Twice” (1967) starring Sean Connery, “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” (1968), “Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory” (1971) with Gene Wilder, and “The Night Digger” (1971). Additionally, Dahl wrote three poems: “Revolting Rhymes” (1982), “Dirty Beasts” (1984), and “Rhyme Stew” (1989). All contributed to his net worth.
Regarding his personal life, Roald Dahl was married to American actress Patricia Neal from July 1953 to 1983 and they had five children. He was then married to Felicity Ann d’Abreu Crosland until he died on the 23rd November 1990 in Oxford, of a blood disease, a myelodysplastic syndrome.
