In a public letter Roald wrote to schoolchildren in 1984, shortly before Boy was published, he talked about his childhood letters and the fact that some of them would appear in his new book. “They are so badly written and badly spelled they will make you laugh,” he told his audience.17 Roald’s poor spelling continued right through his life—as did his misuse of the apostrophe—and, after hours of careful transcription of these errors, I have taken the decision to correct his spelling. At least for the adult letters. I did this because while, in small doses, his spelling mistakes can be amusing, over the span of a long book such as this, they can become irritating too. I imagined Roald looking over my shoulder as I worked—a bit like Mr. Francis, his fearsome headmaster at St. Peter’s—and as I did so, I felt sure this is what he would have wanted.
For the record, an ellipsis within the body of an individual letter almost always indicates an internal cut.