Fantastic Mr Fox

This early Dahl title has been given new illustrations by Quentin Blake, the illustrator of Dahl’s later novels. Fantastic Mr Fox is one of the most satisfying of Dahl’s stories, not only in its content, in which greed, power and cruelty are outwitted by daring and cooperation, but in its elegant construction: the increasingly desperate attempts of the farmers to kill Mr Fox, followed by his sweet revenge and a great feast, which brings together all the underground animals – while the farmers wait in vain above, dripping and shivering in the dark (‘And so far as I know, they are still waiting’). If the countryside lobby has a banned books list, this should be top of it.

Blake can match Dahl for drama, panache and wit; and he has a gentleness and irony that softens Dahl’s Grand Guignol vulgarity and adds another dimension. Not only does he humanise the vile farmers but he has a wry look at the fox family. Mr Fox looks suitably dashing in kerchief, purple frock coat and yellow waistcoat, but Mrs Fox looks improbably confined, and very mumsy, in a white polka dot smock dress with a high collar. Is this a suggestion that Dahl has reversed the images of human and animal to such an extent that the foxes have become almost a parody of the perfect male dominated nuclear family?

This edition is expensive, and is intended as a gift book, but you get at least one Blake colour illustration a page, which is not bad value.