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London: Jonathan Cape, 1983. First edition of Dahl’s Whitbread Award-winning children’s novel, illustrated by Quentin Blake. Octavo, original cloth. Boldly signed by Roald Dahl on the half-title page. Fine in a near fine dust jacket. Housed in a custom half morocco clamshell box made by the Harcourt Bindery. Dahl's The Witches centers on the experiences of a young British boy and his Norwegian grandmother in a world where child-hating societies of witches secretly exist in every country. "Don't be fooled by those witches with their black hats, black cloaks and broomsticks, though, those are not REAL WITCHES. Real witches are exceedingly difficult to spot in the wild and dress in ordinary clothes, looking very much like ordinary people." Dahl's vital indicators for spotting a real witch include facts like they always wear gloves, they have no toes, are bald as boiled eggs and they have blue spit. “Dahl seems to have made an art form of the rediscovery that children tend to warm to the sorts of horror that make lesser mortals (adults) squirm with displeasure… He is undeniably special” (Connolly, 104).