On his 8th birthday, Dahl received a Lett’s Pocket Diary. From then on, he “became a mad diary enthusiast." Dahl describes this first diary, which had

a nice green leather cover, and although it was quite small, there was enough room under each day for me to write my secret thoughts and hopes and also anything important that had happened to me in

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Like many of Dahl’s great works, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory began as a line in one of his “Idea Books”:

a chocolate factory that makes fantastic and marvelous things—and a crazy man running it... 7