Roald Dahl’s first published adult short-story collection was Over to You: Ten Stories of Flyers and Flying.
Published in 1946, the collection drew heavily on Dahl’s experience as a Royal Air Force fighter pilot during the Second World War. Its stories focus on airmen, combat, fear and the psychological strain of flying. The book established Dahl as a writer of adult fiction before his best-known children’s books appeared.
Dahl’s wartime experiences included serving in East Africa and flying combat missions in the Middle East. He was injured in a crash in Libya in 1940 and later returned to flying after recovering. These experiences supplied material for several early stories.
Over to You is not the same as Dahl’s later collections Someone Like You, published in 1953, and Kiss Kiss, published in 1960. Those books helped strengthen his reputation for macabre twists and unsettling adult fiction.