'Subversive' lost chapter of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory finally published

A ‘lost’ chapter of Charlie and The Chocolate Factory, cut from the book 50 years ago for being “too wild and subversive” for children, has been published for the first time. The fifth chapter, from a 1961 draft, describes an extra room in the factory called the “Vanilla Fudge Room,” which features a “colossal jagged mountain” made of fudge. The draft also featured more children, and showed that Charlie originally went into the factory with his mother, not his grandfather.” The text was found among Roald Dahl’s papers after his death.

It is interesting to see something at an earlier stage, you know, what happened in the cooking as it were. That’s rather fascinating.

Quentin Blake, best known for illustrating Dahl’s novels, speaking to the BBC

Dahl’s book, which has inspired several film versions and a hit stage musical, follows the adventures of young Charlie Bucket inside the chocolate factory owned by the eccentric Willy Wonka. It has sold an estimated 50 million copies in the UK and is currently available in 59 languages. In the ‘lost’ chapter, published in the Guardian, characters named Tommy Troutbeck and Wilbur Rice meet a sticky end when they ignore Wonka’s warnings and ride railway wagons carrying fudge.

roald dahl Arts