A wife pawns her lover’s parting gift with unexpected consequences, an unusual painting proves to be more valuable than anyone, especially its owner, could ever have predicted, a husband and wife, unable to get their new baby to feed, hit upon a disturbing solution … Cruelty highlights a domestic familiarity always on the edge of something much, much darker.

From Roald Dahl, the master of the sting in the tail, a newly collected book of his darkest stories. ‘Cruelty has a human heart …’ Even when we mean to be kind we can sometimes be cruel. We each have a streak of nastiness inside us. In these ten tales of cruelty master storyteller Roald Dahl explores how and why it is we make others suffer. Among others, you’ll read the story of two young bullies and the boy they torment, the adulterous wife who uncovers her husband’s secret, the man with a painting tattooed on his back whose value he doesn’t appreciate and the butler and chef who run rings around their obnoxious employer. Dahl understood our deepest secrets, desires and fears and Cruelty is one of four books - the rest being Lust, Deception and Madness - that explore our hidden selves. %%%‘Cruelty has a human heart …’ Even when we mean to be kind we can sometimes be cruel. We each have a streak of nastiness inside us. In these ten tales of cruelty master storyteller Roald Dahl explores how and why it is we make others suffer. Among others, you’ll read the story of two young bullies and the boy they torment, the adulterous wife who uncovers her husband’s secret, the man with a painting tattooed on his back whose value he doesn’t appreciate and the butler and chef who run rings around their obnoxious employer. Dahl understood our deepest secrets, desires and fears and Cruelty is one of four books - the rest being Lust, Deception and Madness - that explore our hidden selves.