The first four tickets are found by gluttonous Augustus Gloop, spoiled Veruca Salt, gum-chewing Violet Beauregarde, and television addict Mike Teavee. The next day, the newspaper announces that Wonka has hidden five Golden Tickets in Wonka Bars the finders of these tickets will be invited to come and tour the factory. He reopened years later, but the gates remained locked and nobody knows who is providing the factory with its workforce. One day, Charlie's bedridden Grandpa Joe tells him about Willy Wonka, the factory's eccentric owner, and all of his fantastical candies until rival chocolatiers sent in spies to steal his recipes, forcing Wonka to close. A prequel film exploring Willy Wonka's origins will be released in 2023.Įleven year old Charlie Bucket lives in poverty with his parents and grandparents in a town which is home to a world-famous chocolate factory. The book has also been adapted into two major motion pictures: Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory in 1971, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in 2005. Dahl had also planned to write a third book in the series but never finished it. The book's sequel, Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, was written by Dahl in 1971 and published in 1972. in 1964 and in the UK by George Allen & Unwin 11 months later. The novel was first published in the US by Alfred A. In 2012, Charlie Bucket brandishing a Golden Ticket appeared in a Royal Mail first class stamp in the UK. Ĭharlie and the Chocolate Factory is frequently ranked among the most popular works in children's literature. It was a combination of this secrecy and the elaborate, often gigantic, machines in the factory that inspired Dahl to write the story. Because of this, both companies became highly protective of their chocolate-making processes. At that time (around the 1920s), Cadbury and Rowntree's were England's two largest chocolate makers and they each often tried to steal trade secrets by sending spies, posing as employees, into the other's factory-inspiring Dahl's idea for the recipe-thieving spies (such as Wonka's rival Slugworth) depicted in the book. Cadbury would often send test packages to the schoolchildren in exchange for their opinions on the new products.

The story was originally inspired by Roald Dahl's experience of chocolate companies during his schooldays at Repton School in Derbyshire.

The story features the adventures of young Charlie Bucket inside the chocolate factory of eccentric chocolatier Willy Wonka. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is a 1964 children's novel by British author Roald Dahl.

Charlie chocolate factory book