Someone Like You (short story collection)

Someone Like You

Dust-jacket from the first edition
Author	Roald Dahl
Language	English
Genre	Mystery, horror, science fiction
Publisher	Alfred A. Knopf
Publication date	1953
Publication place	United Kingdom
Media type	Print (hardback)
Pages	359 pp

Someone Like You is a collection of short stories by Roald Dahl. It was published in 1953 by Alfred Knopf.

Contents

It contains eighteen short stories. The final four are grouped under a collective title.

• "Taste"
• "Lamb to the Slaughter"
• "Man from the South"
• "The Soldier"
• "My Lady Love, My Dove"
• "Dip in the Pool"
• "Galloping Foxley"
• "Skin"
• "Poison"
• "The Wish"
• "Neck"
• "The Sound Machine"
• "Nunc Dimittis"
• "The Great Automatic Grammatizator" (republished as The Great Automatic Grammatizator anthology)
• "Claude's Dog"
  • "The Ratcatcher"
  • "Rummins"
  • "Mr. Feasey"
  • "Mr. Hoddy"

Reception & Legacy

Groff Conklin called Someone Like You "certainly the most distinguished book of short stories of 1953 ... all superb". Anthony Boucher and J. Francis McComas praised the collection's "subtly devastating murder stories [as well as] two biting science-fantasties, plus a few unclassifiable gems" and concluded the volume "belong[ed] on your shelves somewhere in the Beerbohm/Collier/Saki section".

Van Morrison's song Someone Like You is named after this collection.

Two of the stories in this collection were adapted by Wes Anderson as short films for Netflix.

Awards

• Edgar Award, 1954

Further reading

• Tuck, Donald H. (1974). The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy. Chicago: Advent. p. 125. ISBN 0-911682-20-1.