Graham Greene
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Henry Graham Greene (2 October 1904 – 3 April 1991) was an English writer and journalist regarded by many as one of the leading English novelists of the 20th century. Combining literary acclaim with widespread popularity, Greene acquired a reputation early in his lifetime as a major writer, both of serious
Catholic novels The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
, and of thrillers (or "entertainments" as he termed them). He was shortlisted for the Nobel Prize in Literature several times. Through 67 years of writing, which included over 25 novels, he explored the conflicting moral and political issues of the modern world. He was awarded the 1968
Shakespeare Prize The Shakespeare Prize was an annual prize for writing or performance awarded to a British citizen by the Hamburg Alfred Toepfer Foundation. First given by Alfred Toepfer in 1937 as an expression of his Anglophilia in the face of tense internatio ...
and the 1981 Jerusalem Prize. He converted to Catholicism in 1926 after meeting his future wife, Vivien Dayrell-Browning. Later in life he took to calling himself a "Catholic agnostic". He died in 1991, at age 86, of
leukemia Leukemia ( also spelled leukaemia and pronounced ) is a group of blood cancers that usually begin in the bone marrow and result in high numbers of abnormal blood cells. These blood cells are not fully developed and are called ''blasts'' or ...
, and was buried in
Corseaux Corseaux is a municipality in the district Riviera-Pays-d'Enhaut in the canton of Vaud in Switzerland. History Corseaux is first mentioned in 1179 as ''de Corsal''. Geography Corseaux has an area, , of . Of this area, or 21.7% is used for ...
cemetery.


Early years (1904–1922)

Henry Graham Greene was born in 1904 in St John's House, a boarding house of
Berkhamsted School Berkhamsted School is an independent day school in Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire, England. The present school was formed in 1997 by the amalgamation of the original Berkhamsted School, founded in 1541 by John Incent, Dean of St Paul's Cathedral ...
, Hertfordshire, where his father was house master. He was the fourth of six children; his younger brother, Hugh, became
Director-General of the BBC The director-general of the British Broadcasting Corporation is chief executive and (from 1994) editor-in-chief of the BBC. The position was formerly appointed by the Board of Governors of the BBC (for the period of 1927 to 2007) and then t ...
, and his elder brother, Raymond, an eminent physician and mountaineer. His parents, Charles Henry Greene and Marion Raymond Greene, were first cousins, both members of a large, influential family that included the owners of
Greene King Brewery Greene King is a large pub retailer and brewer. It is based in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, England. The company owns pubs, restaurants and hotels. It was listed on the London Stock Exchange until it was acquired by CK Assets in October 2019. H ...
, bankers, and statesmen; his mother was cousin to Robert Louis Stevenson. Charles Greene was second master at Berkhamsted School, where the headmaster was Dr Thomas Fry, who was married to Charles' cousin. Another cousin was the right-wing pacifist
Ben Greene Ben Greene (28 December 1901 – October 1978) was a British Labour Party politician and pacifist. He was interned during the Second World War because of his fascist associations and appealed to the Judicial Committee of the House of Lords aga ...
, whose politics led to his internment during World War II. In his childhood, Greene spent his summers with his uncle, Sir Graham Greene, at Harston House in Cambridgeshire. In Greene's description of his childhood, he describes his learning to read there: "It was at Harston I found quite suddenly I could read—the book was ''Dixon Brett, Detective''. I didn't want anyone to know of my discovery, so I read only in secret, in a remote attic, but my mother must have spotted what I was at all the same, for she gave me Ballantyne's ''
The Coral Island ''The Coral Island: A Tale of the Pacific Ocean'' (1857) is a novel written by Scottish author . One of the first works of juvenile fiction to feature exclusively juvenile heroes, the story relates the adventures of three boys marooned on a ...
'' for the train journey home—always an interminable journey with the long wait between trains at
Bletchley Bletchley is a constituent town of Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, England. It is situated in the south-west of Milton Keynes, and is split between the civil parishes of Bletchley and Fenny Stratford and West Bletchley. Bletchley is best know ...
…" In 1910, Charles Greene succeeded Dr Fry as headmaster of Berkhamsted. Graham also attended the school as a boarder. Bullied and profoundly depressed, he made several suicide attempts, including, as he wrote in his autobiography, by Russian roulette and by taking aspirin before going swimming in the school pool. In 1920, aged 16, in what was a radical step for the time, he was sent for
psychoanalysis PsychoanalysisFrom Greek: + . is a set of theories and therapeutic techniques"What is psychoanalysis? Of course, one is supposed to answer that it is many things — a theory, a research method, a therapy, a body of knowledge. In what might b ...
for six months in London, afterwards returning to school as a day student. School friends included
Claud Cockburn Francis Claud Cockburn ( ; 12 April 1904 – 15 December 1981) was a British journalist. His saying "believe nothing until it has been officially denied" is widely quoted in journalistic studies, but he did not claim credit for origin ...
the journalist, and
Peter Quennell Sir Peter Courtney Quennell (9 March 1905 – 27 October 1993) was an English biographer, literary historian, editor, essayist, poet, and critic. He wrote extensively on social history. Life Born in Bickley, Kent, the son of architect C.  ...
the historian. Greene contributed several stories to the school magazine, one of which was published by a London evening newspaper in January 1921.


Oxford University

He attended Balliol College, Oxford, to study history. During 1922 Greene was for a short time a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain, and sought an invitation to the new
Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
, of which nothing came. In 1925, while he was an undergraduate at Balliol, his first work, a poorly received volume of poetry titled ''Babbling April'', was published. Greene suffered from periodic bouts of depression while at Oxford, and largely kept to himself.Michael Shelden, 'Greene, (Henry) Graham (1904–1991)', ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Oct 200
accessed 15 May 2011
/ref> Of Greene's time at Oxford, his contemporary
Evelyn Waugh Arthur Evelyn St. John Waugh (; 28 October 1903 – 10 April 1966) was an English writer of novels, biographies, and travel books; he was also a prolific journalist and book reviewer. His most famous works include the early satires '' Decl ...
noted that: "Graham Greene looked down on us (and perhaps all undergraduates) as childish and ostentatious. He certainly shared in none of our revelry." He graduated in 1925 with a second-class degree in history.


Writing career

After leaving Oxford, Greene worked as a private tutor and then turned to journalism; first on the '' Nottingham Journal'', and then as a
sub-editor Copy editing (also known as copyediting and manuscript editing) is the process of revising written material ( copy) to improve readability and fitness, as well as ensuring that text is free of grammatical and factual errors. ''The Chicago Manual o ...
on ''
The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' (f ...
''. While he was working in Nottingham, he started corresponding with Vivien Dayrell-Browning, who had written to him to correct him on a point of Catholic doctrine. Greene was an agnostic, but when he later began to think about marrying Vivien, it occurred to him that, as he puts it in ''A Sort of Life'', he "ought at least to learn the nature and limits of the beliefs she held". Greene was baptised on 26 February 1926 and they married on 15 October 1927 at
St Mary's Church, Hampstead St Mary's Church, formerly St Mary's Chapel, is a Grade II* listed Roman Catholic church in Hampstead, London, UK. History St Mary's was the first Catholic church to be built in Hampstead after the English Reformation of the 16th century. Th ...
, London. He published his first novel, '' The Man Within'', in 1929; its favourable reception enabled him to work full-time as a novelist. Greene originally divided his fiction into two genres (which he described as "entertainments" and "novels"): thrillers—often with notable philosophic edges—such as '' The Ministry of Fear''; and literary works—on which he thought his literary reputation would rest—such as ''
The Power and the Glory ''The Power and the Glory'' is a 1940 novel by British author Graham Greene. The title is an allusion to the doxology often recited at the end of the Lord's Prayer: "For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, forever and ever, amen." ...
.'' The next two books, '' The Name of Action'' (1930) and '' Rumour at Nightfall'' (1932), were unsuccessful; and he later disowned them. His first true success was '' Stamboul Train'' (1932) which was taken on by the Book Society and adapted as the film '' Orient Express'', in 1934. Although Greene objected strongly to being described as a
Roman Catholic Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy * Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD * Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a let ...
novelist, rather than as a novelist who happened to be Catholic, Catholic religious themes are at the root of much of his writing, especially '' Brighton Rock'', ''The Power and the Glory'', '' The Heart of the Matter'', and ''
The End of the Affair ''The End of the Affair'' is a 1951 novel by British author Graham Greene, as well as the title of two feature films (released in 1955 and 1999) that were adapted from the novel. Set in London during and just after the Second World War, the n ...
'';Graham Greene, The Major Novels: A Centenary
by Kevin McGowin, '' Eclectica Magazine''
which have been named "the gold standard" of the Catholic novel. Several works, such as '' The Confidential Agent'', '' The Quiet American'', '' Our Man in Havana'', '' The Human Factor'', and his screenplay for '' The Third Man'', also show Greene's avid interest in the workings and intrigues of international politics and espionage. He supplemented his novelist's income with freelance journalism, book and film reviews for '' The Spectator'', and co-editing the magazine ''Night and Day''. Greene's 1937 film review of '' Wee Willie Winkie'', for ''Night and Day''—which said that the nine-year-old star, Shirley Temple, displayed "a dubious coquetry" which appealed to "middle-aged men and clergymen"—provoked Twentieth Century Fox successfully to sue for £3,500 plus costs, and Greene leaving the UK to live in Mexico until after the trial was over. While in Mexico, Greene developed the ideas for the novel often considered his masterpiece, ''The Power and the Glory''. By the 1950s, Greene had become known as one of the finest writers of his generation. As his career lengthened, both Greene and his readers found the distinction between his 'entertainments' and novels increasingly problematic. The last book Greene termed an entertainment was '' Our Man in Havana'' in 1958. Greene also wrote short stories and plays, which were well received, although he was always first and foremost a novelist. His first play, '' The Living Room'', debuted in 1953.
Michael Korda Michael Korda (born 8 October 1933) is an English-born writer and novelist who was editor-in-chief of Simon & Schuster in New York City. Early years Born in London, Michael Korda is the son of English actress Gertrude Musgrove and the Hungaria ...
, a lifelong friend and later his editor at
Simon & Schuster Simon & Schuster () is an American publishing company and a subsidiary of Paramount Global. It was founded in New York City on January 2, 1924 by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster. As of 2016, Simon & Schuster was the third largest pu ...
, observed Greene at work: Greene wrote in a small black leather notebook with a black fountain pen and would write approximately 500 words. Korda described this as Graham's daily penance—once he finished he put the notebook away for the rest of the day. His writing influences included Conrad,
Ford Ford commonly refers to: * Ford Motor Company, an automobile manufacturer founded by Henry Ford * Ford (crossing), a shallow crossing on a river Ford may also refer to: Ford Motor Company * Henry Ford, founder of the Ford Motor Company * Ford F ...
, Haggard, Stevenson, James, Proust,
Buchan Buchan is an area of north-east Scotland, historically one of the original provinces of the Kingdom of Alba. It is now one of the six committee areas and administrative areas of Aberdeenshire Council, Scotland. These areas were created by ...
, and Péguy.


Travel and espionage

Throughout his life, Greene travelled to what he called the world's wild and remote places. In 1941, the travels led to his being recruited into
MI6 The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly known as MI6 ( Military Intelligence, Section 6), is the foreign intelligence service of the United Kingdom, tasked mainly with the covert overseas collection and analysis of human intelligenc ...
by his sister, Elisabeth, who worked for the agency. Accordingly, he was posted to Sierra Leone during the Second World War. Kim Philby, who would later be revealed as a Soviet agent, was Greene's supervisor and friend at MI6. Greene resigned from MI6 in 1944. Greene later wrote an introduction to Philby's 1968 memoir, ''My Silent War''. As a novelist Greene wove the characters he met and the places where he lived into the fabric of his novels. Greene first left Europe at 30 years of age in 1935 on a trip to Liberia that produced the travel book '' Journey Without Maps''. His 1938 trip to Mexico to see the effects of the government's campaign of forced anti-Catholic
secularisation In sociology, secularization (or secularisation) is the transformation of a society from close identification with religious values and institutions toward non-religious values and secular institutions. The ''secularization thesis'' expresses the ...
was paid for by the publishing company Longman, thanks to his friendship with Tom Burns. That voyage produced two books, the factual '' The Lawless Roads'' (published as ''Another Mexico'' in the US) and the novel ''
The Power and the Glory ''The Power and the Glory'' is a 1940 novel by British author Graham Greene. The title is an allusion to the doxology often recited at the end of the Lord's Prayer: "For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, forever and ever, amen." ...
''. In 1953, the
Holy Office The Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF) is the oldest among the departments of the Roman Curia. Its seat is the Palace of the Holy Office in Rome. It was founded to defend the Catholic Church from heresy and is the body responsible f ...
informed Greene that ''The Power and the Glory'' was damaging to the reputation of the priesthood; but later, in a private audience with Greene, Pope Paul VI told him that, although parts of his novels would offend some Catholics, he should ignore the criticism. Greene first travelled to Haiti in 1954, where '' The Comedians'' (1966) is set, which was then under the rule of dictator François Duvalier, known as "Papa Doc", frequently staying at the
Hotel Oloffson The Hotel Oloffson is an inn in central Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Built in the late 19th century as a private home, it was turned into a hotel in 1935, and became known for the many artists and celebrities who stayed there. The hotel was the real- ...
in Port-au-Prince. And, in the late 1950s, as inspiration for his novel, ''A Burnt-Out Case'' (1960), Greene spent time travelling around Africa visiting a number of leper colonies in the Congo Basin and in what were then the
British Cameroons British Cameroon or the British Cameroons was a British mandate territory in British West Africa, formed of the Northern Cameroons and Southern Cameroons. Today, the Northern Cameroons forms parts of the Borno, Adamawa and Taraba states of ...
. During this trip in late February and early March 1959, Greene met several times with Andrée de Jongh, a leader in the Belgian resistance during WWII, who famously established an escape route to Gibraltar through the Pyrenees for downed allied airmen. In 1957, just months after Fidel Castro began his final revolutionary assault on the Batista regime in
Cuba Cuba ( , ), officially the Republic of Cuba ( es, República de Cuba, links=no ), is an island country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located where the northern Caribbea ...
, Greene played a small role in helping the revolutionaries, as a secret courier transporting warm clothing for Castro's rebels hiding in the hills during the Cuban winter. Greene was said to have a fascination with strong leaders, which may have accounted for his interest in Castro, whom he later met. After one visit Castro gave Greene a painting he had done, which hung in the living room of the French house where the author spent the last years of his life. Greene did later voice doubts about Castro, telling a French interviewer in 1983, "I admire him for his courage and his efficiency, but I question his authoritarianism," adding: "All successful revolutions, however idealistic, probably betray themselves in time."


Publishing career

Between 1944 and 1948, Greene was director at
Eyre & Spottiswoode Eyre & Spottiswoode was the London-based printing firm that was the King's Printer, and subsequently, a publisher prior to being incorporated; it once went by the name of Spottiswoode, Ballantyne & co. ltd. In April 1929, it was incorporated as E ...
under chairman Douglas Jerrold, in charge of developing its fiction list. Greene created ''The Century Library'' series, which was discontinued after he left following a conflict with Jerrold regarding
Anthony Powell Anthony Dymoke Powell ( ; 21 December 1905 – 28 March 2000) was an English novelist best known for his 12-volume work ''A Dance to the Music of Time'', published between 1951 and 1975. It is on the list of longest novels in English. Powell' ...
's contract. In 1958, Greene was offered the position of chairman by Oliver Crosthwaite-Eyre, but declined. He was a director at
The Bodley Head The Bodley Head is an English publishing house, founded in 1887 and existing as an independent entity until the 1970s. The name was used as an imprint of Random House Children's Books from 1987 to 2008. In April 2008, it was revived as an adul ...
from 1957 to 1968 under Max Reinhardt.


Personal life

Greene was an agnostic, but was baptised into the Catholic faith in 1926 after meeting his future wife Vivien Dayrell-Browning. They were married on 15 October 1927 at St Mary's Church, Hampstead, north London. The Greenes had two children, Lucy Caroline (born 1933) and Francis (born 1936). In his discussions with Father Trollope, the priest to whom he went for instruction in
Catholicism The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
, Greene argued with the cleric "on the ground of dogmatic atheism", as Greene's primary difficulty with religion was what he termed the "if" surrounding God's existence. He found, however, that "after a few weeks of serious argument the 'if' was becoming less and less improbable",Joseph Pearce
"Graham Greene: Doubter Par Excellence"
CatholicAuthors.com. Retrieved 7 January 2011.
and Greene was converted and baptised after vigorous arguments initially with the priest in which he defended atheism, or at least the "if" of agnosticism. Late in life, Greene called himself a "Catholic agnostic". Beginning in 1946, Greene had an affair with Catherine Walston, the wife of Harry Walston, a wealthy farmer and future life peer. That relationship is generally thought to have informed the writing of ''
The End of the Affair ''The End of the Affair'' is a 1951 novel by British author Graham Greene, as well as the title of two feature films (released in 1955 and 1999) that were adapted from the novel. Set in London during and just after the Second World War, the n ...
'', published in 1951, when the relationship came to an end. Greene left his family in 1947, but Vivien refused to grant him a divorce, in accordance with Catholic teaching, and they remained married until Greene's death in 1991. Greene lived with manic depression ( bipolar disorder). He had a history of depression, which had a profound effect on his writing and personal life. In a letter to his wife, Vivien, he told her that he had "a character profoundly antagonistic to ordinary domestic life," and that "unfortunately, the disease is also one's material". William Golding praised Greene as "the ultimate chronicler of twentieth-century man's consciousness and anxiety".


Final years

After falling victim, with Charlie Chaplin and Noël Coward, to Tom Roe ( Thomas Chambers Windsor Roe), an English financial swindler, Greene chose to leave Britain in 1966, moving to Antibes, to be close to Yvonne Cloetta, whom he had known since 1959, a relationship that endured until his death. In 1973, he had an uncredited
cameo appearance A cameo role, also called a cameo appearance and often shortened to just cameo (), is a brief appearance of a well-known person in a work of the performing arts. These roles are generally small, many of them non-speaking ones, and are commonly ei ...
as an insurance company representative in François Truffaut's film '' Day for Night''. In 1981, Greene was awarded the Jerusalem Prize, awarded to writers concerned with the freedom of the individual in society. He lived the last years of his life in
Vevey Vevey (; frp, Vevê; german: label=former German, Vivis) is a town in Switzerland in the canton of Vaud, on the north shore of Lake Geneva, near Lausanne. The German name Vivis is no longer commonly used. It was the seat of the district of ...
, on Lake Geneva in Switzerland, the same town Charlie Chaplin was living in at this time. He visited Chaplin often, and the two were good friends. His book '' Doctor Fischer of Geneva or the Bomb Party'' (1980) is based on themes of combined philosophical and geographical influences. He ceased going to mass and confession in the 1950s, but in his final years began to receive the sacraments again from Father Leopoldo Durán, a Spanish priest, who became a friend. In one of his final works, a pamphlet titled ''J'Accuse: The Dark Side of Nice'' (1982), Greene wrote of a legal matter that embroiled him and his extended family in
Nice Nice ( , ; Niçard dialect, Niçard: , classical norm, or , nonstandard, ; it, Nizza ; lij, Nissa; grc, Νίκαια; la, Nicaea) is the prefecture of the Alpes-Maritimes departments of France, department in France. The Nice urban unit, agg ...
, and declared that organised crime flourished in Nice because the city's upper levels of civic government protected judicial and police corruption. The accusation provoked a libel lawsuit that Greene lost; but he was vindicated after his death when, in 1994, the former mayor of Nice, Jacques Médecin, was imprisoned for corruption and associated crimes.


Death

In 1984, in celebration of his 80th birthday, the brewery which Greene's great-grandfather founded in 1799 made a special edition of its St. Edmund's Ale for him, with a special label in his honour. Commenting on turning 80, Greene said, "The big advantage ... is that at 80 you are more likely these days to beat out encountering your end in a nuclear war," adding, "the other side of the problem is that I really don't want to survive myself
hich Ij ( fa, ايج, also Romanized as Īj; also known as Hich and Īch) is a village in Golabar Rural District, in the Central District of Ijrud County, Zanjan Province, Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also ...
has nothing to do with nukes, but with the body hanging around while the mind departs." In 1986, Greene was awarded Britain's Order of Merit. He died in 1991 at age 86 of
leukaemia Leukemia ( also spelled leukaemia and pronounced ) is a group of blood cancers that usually begin in the bone marrow and result in high numbers of abnormal blood cells. These blood cells are not fully developed and are called ''blasts'' or ...
and was buried in
Corseaux Corseaux is a municipality in the district Riviera-Pays-d'Enhaut in the canton of Vaud in Switzerland. History Corseaux is first mentioned in 1179 as ''de Corsal''. Geography Corseaux has an area, , of . Of this area, or 21.7% is used for ...
cemetery.


Writing style and themes

Greene originally divided his fiction into two genres:
thrillers Thriller is a genre of fiction, having numerous, often overlapping subgenres. Thrillers are characterized and defined by the moods they elicit, giving viewers heightened feelings of suspense, excitement, surprise, anticipation and anxiety. Suc ...
(
mystery Mystery, The Mystery, Mysteries or The Mysteries may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Fictional characters *Mystery, a cat character in ''Emily the Strange'' Films * ''Mystery'' (2012 film), a 2012 Chinese drama film * ''Mystery'' ( ...
and suspense books), such as '' The Ministry of Fear'', which he described as entertainments, often with notable philosophic edges; and literary works, such as ''
The Power and the Glory ''The Power and the Glory'' is a 1940 novel by British author Graham Greene. The title is an allusion to the doxology often recited at the end of the Lord's Prayer: "For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, forever and ever, amen." ...
'', which he described as novels, on which he thought his literary reputation was to be based. As his career lengthened, both Greene and his readers found the distinction between "entertainments" and "novels" to be less evident. The last book Greene termed an entertainment was '' Our Man in Havana'' in 1958. When '' Travels with My Aunt'' was published eleven years later, many reviewers noted that Greene had designated it a novel, even though, as a work decidedly comic in tone, it appeared closer to his last two entertainments, ''
Loser Takes All ''Loser Takes All'' is a 1955 novella by British author Graham Greene. In his dedication Greene said he had not written "this little story" to encourage "adultery, the use of pyjama tops, or registry office weddings. Nor is it meant to discour ...
'' and ''Our Man in Havana'', than to any of the novels. Greene, they speculated, seemed to have dropped the category of entertainment. This was soon confirmed. In the ''Collected Edition'' of Greene's works published in 22 volumes between 1970 and 1982, the distinction between novels and entertainments is no longer maintained. All are novels. Greene was one of the more "cinematic" of twentieth-century writers; most of his novels and many of his plays and short stories have been adapted for film or television. The
Internet Movie Database IMDb (an abbreviation of Internet Movie Database) is an online database of information related to films, television series, home videos, video games, and streaming content online – including cast, production crew and personal biographies, ...
lists 66 titles between 1934 and 2010 based on Greene material. Some novels were filmed more than once, such as '' Brighton Rock'' in 1947 and 2011, ''
The End of the Affair ''The End of the Affair'' is a 1951 novel by British author Graham Greene, as well as the title of two feature films (released in 1955 and 1999) that were adapted from the novel. Set in London during and just after the Second World War, the n ...
'' in 1955 and 1999, and '' The Quiet American'' in 1958 and 2002. The 1936 thriller '' A Gun for Sale'' was filmed at least five times under different titles, notably ''
This Gun for Hire ''This Gun for Hire'' is a 1942 American film noir crime film directed by Frank Tuttle and starring Veronica Lake, Robert Preston (actor), Robert Preston, Laird Cregar, and Alan Ladd. It is based on the 1936 novel ''A Gun for Sale'' by Graham Gr ...
'' in 1942. Greene received an
Academy Award The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international film industry. The awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the entertainment ind ...
nomination for the screenplay for the 1948
Carol Reed Sir Carol Reed (30 December 1906 – 25 April 1976) was an English film director and producer, best known for '' Odd Man Out'' (1947), '' The Fallen Idol'' (1948), ''The Third Man'' (1949), and ''Oliver!'' (1968), for which he was awarded the ...
film '' The Fallen Idol'', adapted from his own short story ''The Basement Room''. He also wrote several original screenplays. In 1949, after writing the novella as "raw material", he wrote the screenplay for a classic '' film noir'', '' The Third Man'', also directed by Carol Reed, and featuring Orson Welles. In 1983, ''
The Honorary Consul ''The Honorary Consul'' is a British thriller novel by Graham Greene, published in 1973. Greene considered it one of his favourite works. It is set at the run-up to Argentina's 'Dirty War' in the early 1970s. Plot summary The story is set in ...
'', published ten years earlier, was released as a film under its original title, starring
Michael Caine Sir Michael Caine (born Maurice Joseph Micklewhite; 14 March 1933) is an English actor. Known for his distinctive Cockney accent, he has appeared in more than 160 films in a career spanning seven decades, and is considered a British film ico ...
and
Richard Gere Richard Tiffany Gere ( ; born August 31, 1949) is an American actor. He began in films in the 1970s, playing a supporting role in '' Looking for Mr. Goodbar'' (1977) and a starring role in ''Days of Heaven'' (1978). He came to prominence with ...
. Author and screenwriter
Michael Korda Michael Korda (born 8 October 1933) is an English-born writer and novelist who was editor-in-chief of Simon & Schuster in New York City. Early years Born in London, Michael Korda is the son of English actress Gertrude Musgrove and the Hungaria ...
contributed a foreword and introduction to this novel in a commemorative edition. In 2009, ''
The Strand Magazine ''The Strand Magazine'' was a monthly British magazine founded by George Newnes, composed of short fiction and general interest articles. It was published in the United Kingdom from January 1891 to March 1950, running to 711 issues, though the ...
'' began to publish in serial form a newly discovered Greene novel titled ''The Empty Chair''. The manuscript was written in longhand when Greene was 22 and newly converted to Catholicism. Greene's literary style was described by Evelyn Waugh in '' Commonweal'' as "not a specifically literary style at all. The words are functional, devoid of sensuous attraction, of ancestry, and of independent life". Commenting on the lean prose and its readability, Richard Jones wrote in the '' Virginia Quarterly Review'' that "nothing deflects Greene from the main business of holding the reader's attention". Greene's novels often have religious themes at their centre. In his literary criticism he attacked the
modernist Modernism is both a philosophy, philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western world, Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new fo ...
writers Virginia Woolf and
E. M. Forster Edward Morgan Forster (1 January 1879 – 7 June 1970) was an English author, best known for his novels, particularly ''A Room with a View'' (1908), ''Howards End'' (1910), and ''A Passage to India'' (1924). He also wrote numerous short stori ...
for having lost the religious sense which, he argued, resulted in dull, superficial characters, who "wandered about like cardboard symbols through a world that is paper-thin". Only in recovering the religious element, the awareness of the drama of the struggle in the soul that carries the permanent consequence of salvation or damnation, and of the ultimate metaphysical realities of good and evil, sin and divine grace, could the novel recover its dramatic power. Suffering and unhappiness are omnipresent in the world Greene depicts; and Catholicism is presented against a background of unvarying human evil, sin, and doubt. V. S. Pritchett praised Greene as the first English novelist since Henry James to present, and grapple with, the reality of evil.The Catholic Novels of Graham Greene, ''Crisis Magazine'', May 2005. Greene concentrated on portraying the characters' internal lives—their mental, emotional, and spiritual depths. His stories are often set in poor, hot and dusty tropical places such as Mexico, West Africa, Vietnam, Cuba, Haiti, and Argentina, which led to the coining of the expression "Greeneland" to describe such settings. The novels often portray the dramatic struggles of the individual soul from a Catholic perspective. Greene was criticised for certain tendencies in an unorthodox direction—in the world, sin is omnipresent to the degree that the vigilant struggle to avoid sinful conduct is doomed to failure, hence not central to holiness. His friend and fellow Catholic
Evelyn Waugh Arthur Evelyn St. John Waugh (; 28 October 1903 – 10 April 1966) was an English writer of novels, biographies, and travel books; he was also a prolific journalist and book reviewer. His most famous works include the early satires '' Decl ...
attacked that as a revival of the Quietist heresy. This aspect of his work also was criticised by the theologian
Hans Urs von Balthasar Hans Urs von Balthasar (12 August 1905 – 26 June 1988) was a Swiss theologian and Catholic priest who is considered an important Catholic theologian of the 20th century. He was announced as his choice to become a cardinal by Pope John Paul II, b ...
, as giving sin a mystique. Greene responded that constructing a vision of pure faith and goodness in the novel was beyond his talents. Praise of Greene from an orthodox Catholic point of view by Edward Short is in ''Crisis Magazine'', and a mainstream Catholic critique is presented by
Joseph Pearce Joseph Pearce (born February 12, 1961), is an English-born American writer, and Director of the Center for Faith and Culture at Aquinas College in Nashville, Tennessee, before which he held positions at Thomas More College of Liberal Arts in ...
. Catholicism's prominence decreased in his later writings. The supernatural realities that haunted the earlier work declined and were replaced by a humanistic perspective, a change reflected in his public criticism of orthodox Catholic teaching. In his later years, Greene was a strong critic of
American imperialism American imperialism refers to the expansion of American political, economic, cultural, and media influence beyond the boundaries of the United States. Depending on the commentator, it may include imperialism through outright military conques ...
and sympathised with the Cuban leader Fidel Castro, whom he had met. Years before the Vietnam War, he prophetically attacked the idealistic but arrogant beliefs of '' The Quiet American'', whose certainty in his own virtue kept him from seeing the disaster he inflicted on the Vietnamese. In '' Ways of Escape'', reflecting on his Mexican trip, he complained that Mexico's government was insufficiently left-wing compared with Cuba's.P.xii of John Updike's introduction to ''The Power and the Glory'' New York: Viking, 1990. In Greene's opinion, "Conservatism and Catholicism should be ... impossible bedfellows". In 1949, when the '' New Statesman'' held a contest for parodies of Greene's writing style, he submitted an entry under the name "N. Wilkinson" and won second prize. His entry comprised the first two paragraphs of a novel, apparently set in Italy, ''The Stranger's Hand: An Entertainment''. Greene's friend Mario Soldati, a
Piedmont it, Piemontese , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = , demographics1_footnotes = , demographics1_title1 = , demographics1_info1 = , demographics1_title2 ...
ese novelist and film director, believed it had the makings of a suspense film about Yugoslav spies in postwar
Venice Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 bridges. The isla ...
. Upon Soldati's prompting, Greene continued writing the story as the basis for a film script. Apparently he lost interest in the project, leaving it as a substantial fragment that was published posthumously in ''The Graham Greene Film Reader'' (1993) and ''No Man's Land'' (2005). A script for '' The Stranger's Hand'' was written by Guy Elmes on the basis of Greene's unfinished story, and filmed by Soldati in 1954. In 1965, Greene again entered a similar ''New Statesman'' competition pseudonymously, and won an honourable mention.


Legacy

Greene is regarded as a major 20th-century
novelist A novelist is an author or writer of novels, though often novelists also write in other genres of both fiction and non-fiction. Some novelists are professional novelists, thus make a living writing novels and other fiction, while others asp ...
, and was praised by
John Irving John Winslow Irving (born John Wallace Blunt Jr.; March 2, 1942) is an American-Canadian novelist, short story writer, and screenwriter. Irving achieved critical and popular acclaim after the international success of ''The World According to ...
, prior to Greene's death, as "the most accomplished living novelist in the English language". Irving, John. ''The Imaginary Girlfriend''. New York, Ballantine Books, 2002, p. 31. Novelist
Frederick Buechner Carl Frederick Buechner ( ; July 11, 1926 – August 15, 2022) was an American author, Presbyterian minister, preacher, and theologian. The author of thirty-nine published books, his work encompassed different genres, including fiction, autob ...
called Greene's novel ''
The Power and the Glory ''The Power and the Glory'' is a 1940 novel by British author Graham Greene. The title is an allusion to the doxology often recited at the end of the Lord's Prayer: "For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, forever and ever, amen." ...
'' a "tremendous influence". By 1943, Greene had acquired the reputation of being the "leading English male novelist of his generation", and at the time of his death in 1991 had a reputation as a writer of both deeply serious novels on the theme of Catholicism, and of "suspense-filled stories of detection". Acclaimed during his lifetime, Greene was shortlisted for the Nobel Prize in Literature several times. In 1961 and 1966 he was among the final three candidates for the prize. In 1967, Greene was again among the final three choices, according to Nobel records unsealed on the 50th anniversary in 2017. The committee also considered
Jorge Luis Borges Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo (; ; 24 August 1899 – 14 June 1986) was an Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator, as well as a key figure in Spanish-language and international literature. His best-known b ...
and
Miguel Ángel Asturias Miguel Ángel Asturias Rosales (; October 19, 1899 – June 9, 1974) was a Nobel Prize-winning Guatemalan poet-diplomat, novelist, playwright and journalist. Asturias helped establish Latin American literature's contribution to mainstream W ...
, with the latter the chosen winner. Greene remained a favourite to win the Nobel prize in the 1980's, but it was known that two influential members of the Swedish Academy, Artur Lundkvist and Lars Gyllensten, opposed the prize for Greene and he was never awarded. Greene collected several literary awards for his novels, including the 1941 Hawthornden Prize for ''
The Power and the Glory ''The Power and the Glory'' is a 1940 novel by British author Graham Greene. The title is an allusion to the doxology often recited at the end of the Lord's Prayer: "For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, forever and ever, amen." ...
'' and the 1948
James Tait Black Memorial Prize The James Tait Black Memorial Prizes are literary prizes awarded for literature written in the English language. They, along with the Hawthornden Prize, are Britain's oldest literary awards. Based at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, Uni ...
for '' The Heart of the Matter''. As an author, he received the 1968
Shakespeare Prize The Shakespeare Prize was an annual prize for writing or performance awarded to a British citizen by the Hamburg Alfred Toepfer Foundation. First given by Alfred Toepfer in 1937 as an expression of his Anglophilia in the face of tense internatio ...
and the 1981 Jerusalem Prize, a biennial literary award given to writers whose works have dealt with themes of human freedom in society. In 1986, he was awarded Britain's Order of Merit. The Graham Greene International Festival is an annual four-day event of conference papers, informal talks, question and answer sessions, films, dramatised readings, music, creative writing workshops and social events. It is organised by the Graham Greene Birthplace Trust, and takes place in the writer's home town of Berkhamsted (about 35 miles northwest of London), on dates as close as possible to the anniversary of his birth (2 October). Its purpose is to promote interest in and study of the works of Graham Greene.
The Potting Shed ''The Potting Shed'' is a 1957 play by Graham Greene in three acts. The psychological drama centers on a secret held by the Callifer family for nearly thirty years. The patriarch of the family is dying and James, his estranged son, appears une ...
He is the subject of the 2013 documentary film, '' Dangerous Edge: A Life of Graham Greene''. His short story " The Destructors" was featured in the 2001 film ''
Donnie Darko ''Donnie Darko'' is a 2001 American science fiction psychological thriller film written and directed by Richard Kelly and produced by Flower Films. It stars Jake Gyllenhaal, Jena Malone, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Drew Barrymore, Mary McDonnell, ...
''.


Select works

* '' The Man Within'' (début—1929) * '' Stamboul Train'' (1932) (also published as ''Orient Express'' in the US) * '' It's a Battlefield'' (1934) * '' England Made Me'' (also published as ''The Shipwrecked'') (1935) * '' A Gun for Sale'' (1936) * '' Journey Without Maps'' (1936) * '' Brighton Rock'' (1938) * '' The Lawless Roads'' (1939) (also published as ''Another Mexico'' in the US) * '' The Confidential Agent'' (1939) * ''
The Power and the Glory ''The Power and the Glory'' is a 1940 novel by British author Graham Greene. The title is an allusion to the doxology often recited at the end of the Lord's Prayer: "For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, forever and ever, amen." ...
'' (1940) * '' The Ministry of Fear'' (1943) * '' The Heart of the Matter'' (1948) * '' The Third Man'' (1949) (novella written as a preliminary to Greene's screenplay for the film ''The Third Man'') * ''
The End of the Affair ''The End of the Affair'' is a 1951 novel by British author Graham Greene, as well as the title of two feature films (released in 1955 and 1999) that were adapted from the novel. Set in London during and just after the Second World War, the n ...
'' (1951) * '' Twenty-One Stories'' (1954) (short stories) * ''
Loser Takes All ''Loser Takes All'' is a 1955 novella by British author Graham Greene. In his dedication Greene said he had not written "this little story" to encourage "adultery, the use of pyjama tops, or registry office weddings. Nor is it meant to discour ...
'' (1955) * '' The Quiet American'' (1955) * ''
The Potting Shed ''The Potting Shed'' is a 1957 play by Graham Greene in three acts. The psychological drama centers on a secret held by the Callifer family for nearly thirty years. The patriarch of the family is dying and James, his estranged son, appears une ...
'' (1956) * '' Our Man in Havana'' (1958) * '' A Burnt-Out Case'' (1960) * '' In Search of a Character: Two African Journals'' (1961) * '' The Comedians'' (1966) * '' Travels with My Aunt'' (1969) * '' A Sort of Life'' (1971) * ''
The Honorary Consul ''The Honorary Consul'' is a British thriller novel by Graham Greene, published in 1973. Greene considered it one of his favourite works. It is set at the run-up to Argentina's 'Dirty War' in the early 1970s. Plot summary The story is set in ...
'' (1973) * '' The Human Factor'' (1978) * '' Ways of Escape'' (1980) * ''
Doctor Fischer of Geneva ''Doctor Fischer of Geneva or The bomb party'' (1980) is a novel by the English novelist Graham Greene. The eponymous party has been examined as an example of a statistical search problem. Plot summary The story is narrated by Alfred Jones, a t ...
'' (1980) * '' Monsignor Quixote'' (1982) * '' Getting To Know The General: The Story of an Involvement'' (1984) * '' The Tenth Man'' (1985) * '' The Last Word'' (1990) (short stories)


References


Citations


Works cited

* Bosco, Mark, 2005. ''Graham Greene's Catholic Imagination''. Oxford University Press. * Diederich, Bernard, 2012. ''Seeds of Fiction: Graham Greene's Adventures in Haiti and Central America 1954–1983''. Peter Owen * Diemert, Brian, 1996. ''Graham Greene's Thrillers and the 1930s''. McGill-Queen's Press * Donaghy, Henry J., 1983. ''Graham Greene, an Introduction to His Writings''. Rodopi * Feldman, Burton, 2001.''The Nobel Prize: A History of Genius, Controversy, and Prestige''. Arcade Publishing * Kohn, Lynette, 1961. ''Graham Greene: The Major Novels''. Stanford University Press * Iyer, Pico, 2012. ''The Man within My Head: Graham Greene, My Father and Me''. Bloomsbury. * Schwartz, Adam, 2005. ''The Third Spring: G.K. Chesterton, Graham Greene, Christopher Dawson, and David Jones''. CUA Press * Steensma, Robert C., 1997, ''Encyclopedia of the Essay''. Taylor & Francis * Theroux, Paul, 2004. ''Introduction to The Comedians''. Random House * Vickers, Graham, 2008. ''Chasing Lolita: How Popular Culture Corrupted Nabokov's Little Girl All Over Again. Chicago Review Press


Further reading


Graham Greene Studies
(journal), University of North Georgia - Digital Commons,
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,
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* Allain, Marie-Françoise, 1983. ''The Other Man: Conversations with Graham Greene''. Bodley Head. * Bergonzi, Bernard, 2006. ''A Study in Greene: Graham Greene and the Art of the Novel''. Oxford University Press. * Cloetta, Yvonne, 2004. ''In Search of a Beginning: My Life with Graham Greene'', translated by Euan Cameron. Bloomsbury. * Fallowell, Duncan, ''20th Century Characters'', Loaded: Graham Greene at home in Antibes (London, Vintage Books, 1994) * Greene, Richard, editor, 2007. ''Graham Greene: A Life in Letters''. Knopf Canada. * Hazzard, Shirley, 2000. ''Greene on Capri''. Farrar, Straus & Giroux. * Henríquez Jiménez, Santiago J. ''La realidad y la construcción de la ficción en la novelística de Graham Greene'', La Laguna: Universidad, 1992. * Henríquez Jiménez, Santiago J. "Graham Greene's novels seen in the Light of His Religious Discourse" en Wm. Thomas Hill (ed.). ''Perceptions of Religious Faith in the Work of Graham Greene''. Oxford, New York...: Peter Lang. 2002. 657–685. * Henríquez Jiménez, Santiago J. “Don Quijote de la Mancha y Monsignor Quixote: la inspiración castellana de Grahan Greene en el clásico español de Cervantes” en José Manuel Barrio Marco y María José Crespo Allué (eds.). La huella de Cervantes y del Quijote en la cultura anglosajona. Centro Buendía y Universidad de Valladolid. Valladolid. 2007. 311–318. * Henríquez Jiménez, Santiago J. “Miguel de Unamuno y Graham Greene: coincidencias en torno a los cuidados de la fe” en Teresa Gibert Maceda y Laura Alba Juez (coord..). Estudios de Filología Inglesa. Homenaje a la Dra. Asunción Alba Pelayo. Madrid: UNED. 2008. 421–430. * Phillips, Gene D., 1974. ''Graham Greene: Films of His Fiction'', Teachers' College Press. * O'Prey, Paul, 1988. ''A Reader's Guide to Graham Greene''. Thames and Hudson. * Shelden, Michael, 1994. ''Graham Greene: The Enemy Within''. William Heinemann. Random House ed., 1995, * Sherry, Norman, 1989. ''The Life of Graham Greene: Vol. 1, 1904–1939''. Random House UK, . Viking, . Penguin reprint 2004, * Sherry, Norman, 1994. ''The Life of Graham Greene: Vol. 2, 1939–1955''. Viking. . Penguin reprint 2004: * Sherry, Norman, 2004. ''The Life of Graham Greene: Vol. 3, 1955–1991''. Viking. * Simon Raven & Martin Shuttleworth * * Bernhard Valentinitsch,Graham Greenes Roman 'The Human Factor'(1978) und Otto Premingers gleichnamige Verfilmung (1979). In:JIPSS (= Journal for Intelligence,Propaganda and Security),Nr.14.Graz 2021,p. 34-56.


External links

* * * *
Graham Greene Papers
at the
Harry Ransom Center The Harry Ransom Center (until 1983 the Humanities Research Center) is an archive, library and museum at the University of Texas at Austin, specializing in the collection of literary and cultural artifacts from the Americas and Europe for the pur ...

Graham Greene Papers
at John J. Burns Library, Boston College
Graham Greene Collection
at Emory University
Graham Greene Letters
at
Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

Bryan Forbes Collection of Graham Greene
at the British Library
The Cherry Record Collection of Josephine Reid’s Papers and Books Relating to Graham Greene
at
Balliol College Balliol College () is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. One of Oxford's oldest colleges, it was founded around 1263 by John I de Balliol, a landowner from Barnard Castle in County Durham, who provided the ...
Archives & Manuscripts {{DEFAULTSORT:Greene, Graham 1904 births 1991 deaths 20th-century British dramatists and playwrights 20th-century English screenwriters 20th-century English novelists 20th-century essayists Alumni of Balliol College, Oxford British emigrants to Switzerland British male dramatists and playwrights Christian novelists Commandeurs of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres Converts to Roman Catholicism from atheism or agnosticism Deaths from cancer in Switzerland Deaths from leukemia Edgar Award winners English dramatists and playwrights English essayists English expatriates English male journalists English male novelists English male screenwriters English male short story writers English memoirists English Roman Catholic writers English Roman Catholics English short story writers English spy fiction writers English travel writers Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature James Tait Black Memorial Prize recipients Jerusalem Prize recipients Male essayists Members of the Order of Merit Members of the Order of the Companions of Honour People educated at Berkhamsted School People from Berkhamsted People from Harston People with bipolar disorder Secret Intelligence Service personnel World War II spies for the United Kingdom Writers from Hertfordshire