First edition of the author's first book for children (preceding the first English edition by six years). First issue, with "Bound by H. Wolff, New York" on the colophon page. Small quarto (10.0625 x 7.0625 inches; 256 x 180 mm.). [8], 118, [1], [1, colophon] pages. Four color plates and numerous black and white and color text illustrations.
Publisher's red cloth with front cover pictorially stamped in blind with a portrait of James surrounded by wreath, back cover stamped in blind with the publisher's device, and spine decoratively stamped and lettered in gilt. Top edge stained peach. Green endpapers. In original color pictorial dust jacket.
"In 1953 [Dahl] married the actress Patricia Neal; they had three children, to whom he began to tell bedtime stories. James and the Giant Peach (1961), the first of these to reach print, is a comic fantasy about a small boy who travels the world inside a huge peach, in company with several giant insects. Like most of Dahl's children's books, it first appeared in print in the USA" (The Oxford Companion to Children's Literature).