Front cover of the first US edition of Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator with illustrations by Joseph Schindelman.
Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator is a humorous children's science fiction and fantasy novel of twenty chapters by the British author Roald Dahl. The first American edition (ISBN 0394824725) was published by Alfred A. Knopf Inc. in 1972. The first British edition (ISBN 0048231061) was published by George Allen & Unwin in 1973. It is a sequel to Dahl's 1964 book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
In Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Charlie Bucket is one of five children who win a tour of the chocolate factory owned by the eccentric and reclusive genius Willy Wonka. Charlie's Grandpa Joe accompanies him. The factory is staffed entirely by little people known as Oompa Loompas and one of its many extraordinary features is the Great Glass Elevator that can not only go up and down, but also go sideways and even leave the factory entirely. As a result of their personality flaws, the other four children have accidents that mean they cannot continue the factory tour. When Charlie and Grandpa Joe are the only visitors left, Wonka reveals that the reason he allowed five children to visit his factory was because he was looking for an heir. Due to his good character, Charlie has proven himself worthy of being that heir and Wonka gives ownership of the factory to him. Wonka, Charlie and Grandpa Joe then take the Great Glass Elevator to Charlie's house in order to take his parents and his other three bedridden grandparents back to the chocolate factory to live. In Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, while traveling back to the chocolate factory, Willy Wonka and the Bucket family take a detour into outer space and encounter some dangerous alien creatures. Having returned to the factory, Wonka tries to get Charlie's Grandma Josephine, Grandpa George and Grandma Georgina to work there. When they refuse to get out of the bed they have been in for the last twenty years, Wonka offers them some rejuvenating pills. When they take the pills, there are disastrous consequences.
Due to his hatred of Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, the 1971 film adaptation of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl refused to allow a film based on Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator to be made and the novel has never been adapted to any visual media. Dahl wrote a stage adaptation of Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, the script for which was published in 1984.
Plot[]
Picking up from the moment the previous book left off, Willy Wonka, Charlie Bucket, Charlie's parents, his Grandpa Joe, Grandma Josephine, Grandpa George and Grandma Georgina get into the Great Glass Elevator to travel to Wonka's chocolate factory to live. Since Grandma Josephine, Grandpa George and Grandma Georgina refuse to leave the bed they have been in for the last twenty years, it is pushed into the elevator. Wonka insists on taking the elevator high up into the air in order to bring it down again with enough force to break a hole in the factory roof, even though Charlie points out that there is already a hole in the factory roof that they made when they left in the elevator. Wonka gets distracted just at the moment when he is in danger of taking the elevator "too high" and it goes into orbit.
The Space Hotel "U.S.A.", which is about to open, is nearby. Wonka suggests that they go there to help themselves to some food. The Commuter Capsule, piloted by three astronauts, is taking the staff who will work there to the space hotel and its progress is being followed on radio and television around the world. The astronauts see the Great Glass Elevator and the seven people inside it. When they first say what they can see, they are not believed either by Mission Control or by the President of the United States, Lancelot R. Gilligrass. When the astronauts turn on their television camera, Gilligrass thinks the people inside the Great Glass Elevator must be astronauts from a rival country. By phone, the heads of state of the Soviet Union and China tell him they are not their astronauts.
Willy Wonka and the Bucket family enter the space hotel. Three of Charlie's grandparents still refuse to leave their bed, which has to be pushed. There are no television cameras inside the hotel but President Gilligrass addresses them by radio and demands that they identify themselves. By speaking gibberish with some English words mixed in, including "Venus" and "Mars", Wonka convinces Gilligrass that they are aliens. So as to avoid going to war with Venus and Mars, Gilligrass decides to be nice to the aliens and invites them to the White House. Wonka tells the others they cannot accept that invitation because the President would see they are not really aliens. At that moment, Wonka and the Bucket family see that there are real aliens in the hotel and flee back to the Great Glass Elevator. The aliens usually look like large green eggs with eyes but are able to stretch themselves into other shapes. Wonka says that the aliens are called Vermicious Knids. They are able to propel themselves through space without using spacecraft. They have eaten all of the original inhabitants of Venus, Mars and the Moon. They sometimes try to invade Earth but always burn up when they enter its atmosphere and turn into shooting stars.
Vermicious Knids attack the Commuter Capsule and eat some of the hotel staff. Using a steel rope, the Great Glass Elevator pulls the Commuter Capsule back to Earth. Vermicious Knids pursue them and one enormous Knid wraps itself around the elevator. All of the Knids burn up when they enter the Earth's atmosphere. The Commuter Capsule splashes down safely into the Pacific Ocean and the Great Glass Elevator returns to Willy Wonka's chocolate factory.
Willy Wonka tells Grandma Josephine, Grandpa George and Grandma Georgina that he wants them to work in the factory. They still refuse to leave their bed. Wonka offers them some rejuvenating medicine he has invented that he calls Wonka-Vite. From testing it on Oompa Loompas, Wonka knows that one Wonka-Vite pill will make a person twenty years younger. Each of the three grandparents take four Wonka-Vite pills. 80 year-old Grandma Josephine and 81 year-old Grandpa George become babies. 78 year-old Grandma Georgina disappears. Wonka explains that because she has become -2 years-old she has gone to Minusland. Using the Great Glass Elevator, Willy Wonka and Charlie travel deep beneath the Earth to Minusland. They see Grandma Georgina floating like a ghost. Willy Wonka sprays her with an aging formula he has created, made from ingredients taken from the oldest things on Earth, that he calls Vita-Wonk. When Willy Wonka and Charlie return to the surface, they find Grandma Georgina back in bed. She is, however, now 358 years-old. She is given Wonka-Vite to make her 78 again. Grandma Georgina and Grandpa George are given Vita-Wonk and return to being 80 and 81 years-old.
An Oompa Loompa arrives carrying a large envelope. It contains a letter from President Lancelot R. Gilligrass. Gilligrass says that the seven astronauts who saved the Commuter Capsule were observed entering Wonka's chocolate factory. All seven brave astronauts are invited to a party at the White House and a helicopter is waiting outside to take them there. This invitation is enough to make Grandma Georgina, Grandpa George and Grandma Josephine finally jump out of bed with joy. Grandpa Joe comments to Charlie that it has been an eventful day. Charlie replies that the day is not over yet and has hardly even begun.
The ending leaves open the possibility of a further sequel. Dahl began writing a third book in the series about Charlie's visit to the White House that remained unpublished and unfinished.