Roald Dahl threatened publisher with ‘enormous crocodile’ if they changed his words

Conversation with Francis Bacon emerges amid the row over updating controversial language in the children's author's books

One of Roald Dahl's best-known characters was the Enormous Crocodile, a horrid greedy grumptious brute" who wants to eat something juicy and delicious".

Now a conversation the author had 40 years ago has come to light, revealing that he was so appalled by the idea that publishers might one day censor his work that he threatened to send the crocodile to gobble them up".