Graham Greene Popular Books

Graham Greene Biography & Facts

Henry Graham Greene (2 October 1904 – 3 April 1991) was an English writer and journalist regarded by many as one of the leading 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, 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 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, aged 86, of leukemia, and was buried in Corseaux cemetery in Switzerland. Early years (1904–1922) Henry Graham Greene was born in 1904 in St John's House, a boarding house of Berkhamsted School, Hertfordshire, where his father was house master. He was the fourth of six children; his younger brother, Hugh, became Director-General of the BBC, 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, 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, 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 for the train journey home—always an interminable journey with the long wait between trains at Bletchley..." 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 for six months in London, afterwards returning to school as a day student. School friends included Claud Cockburn the journalist, and Peter Quennell 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, 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 had periodic bouts of depression while at Oxford, and largely kept to himself. Of Greene's time at Oxford, his contemporary Evelyn Waugh 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 on The Times. 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, 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 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 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; 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, a lifelong friend and later his editor at Simon & Schuster, observed Greene at work: Greene wrote in a small black leather notebook with a black fountain pen and .... Discover the Graham Greene popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Graham Greene books.

Best Seller Graham Greene Books of 2024

  • A Way Through the Wood synopsis, comments

    A Way Through the Wood

    Nigel Balchin

    A psychological study of marriage, loyalty and justice, A WAY THROUGH THE WOOD is a remarkable postwar novel.'A superb storyteller' SUNDAY TIMES 'I'd place him up there with Graha...

  • The Aspern Papers and Other Tales synopsis, comments

    The Aspern Papers and Other Tales

    Henry James & Michael Gorra

    A wonderful new collection of Henry James's short stories about the relationship between art and life, edited by Michael Gorra.This volume gathers seven of the very best of Henry J...

  • Absolution synopsis, comments

    Absolution

    Alice McDermott

    AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERNamed a Best Book of the Year by Time, Esquire, Good Housekeeping, Kirkus Reviews, Los Angeles Times, NPR, Oprah Daily, Real Simple, and VogueA ...

  • David Copperfield synopsis, comments

    David Copperfield

    Charles Dickens

    Now a major film directed by Armando Iannucci, starring Dev Patel, Tilda Swinton, Hugh Laurie, Peter Capaldi and Ben Whishaw'The greatest achievement of the greatest of all novelis...

  • A Beautiful Place to Die synopsis, comments

    A Beautiful Place to Die

    Malla Nunn

    Awardwinning screenwriter Malla Nunn delivers a stunning and darkly romantic crime novel set in 1950s apartheid South Africa, featuring Detective Emmanuel Cooper a man caught up i...

  • The Complete Fables synopsis, comments

    The Complete Fables

    Aesop & Olivia Temple

    Aesop was probably a prisoner of war, sold into slavery in the early sixth century BC, who represented his masters in court and negotiations, and relied on animal stories to put ac...

  • The Collected Novels Graham Greene synopsis, comments

    The Collected Novels Graham Greene

    Graham Greene

    The End of the Affair "A story has no beginning or end: arbitrarily one chooses a moment of experience from which to look ahead..." "This is a record of hate far more than of love,...

  • Graham Greene synopsis, comments

    Graham Greene

    Michael G. Brennan

    In this significant rereading of Graham Greene's writing career, Michael Brennan explores the impact of major issues of Catholic faith and doubt on his work, particularly in re...

  • Manon Lescaut synopsis, comments

    Manon Lescaut

    Abbe Prevost

    When the young Chevalier des Grieux first sets eyes on the exquisitely beautiful and charming Manon Lescaut they fall passionately in love. But his happiness turns to bitter despai...

  • A Journal of the Plague Year synopsis, comments

    A Journal of the Plague Year

    Daniel Defoe & Christopher Bristow

    'The most reliable and comprehensive account of the Great Plague that we possess' Anthony Burgess In 1665 the plague swept through London, claiming over 97,000 lives. Daniel Def...

  • The Index of Self-Destructive Acts synopsis, comments

    The Index of Self-Destructive Acts

    Christopher Beha

    “Beha tackles finance, faith, war, entitlement, and no end of selfdestructive acts. I greatly admired both the writing and the ambition.” Ann PatchettA New York Times Editors’...

  • Waverley synopsis, comments

    Waverley

    Walter Scott & Andrew Hook

    Set against the backdrop of the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745, Waverley depicts the story of Edward Waverley, an idealistic daydreamer whose loyalty to his regiment is threatened when...

  • Dear Friend, from My Life I Write to You in Your Life synopsis, comments

    Dear Friend, from My Life I Write to You in Your Life

    Yiyun Li

    In her first memoir, awardwinning novelist Yiyun Li offers a journey of recovery through literature: a letter from a writer to likeminded readers. “A meditation on the fact that li...

  • Dark at the Crossing synopsis, comments

    Dark at the Crossing

    Elliot Ackerman

    NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST“Transports readers into a world few Americans know” Washington PostA timely new novel of stunning humanity and tension: a contemporary love story set o...

  • Confessions of an English Opium Eater synopsis, comments

    Confessions of an English Opium Eater

    Thomas De Quincey & Barry Milligan

    "Thou has the keys of Paradise, oh just, subtle, and mighty opium!" Determined to counter the lies about opium that had been told by travellers to the Orient and the medical profes...

  • The Spire synopsis, comments

    The Spire

    William Golding

    Succumb to one churchman's apocalyptic vision in this prophetic tale by the radical Nobel Laureate and author of Lord of the Flies, William Golding (recorded by Benedict Cumberbatc...

  • Remembrance synopsis, comments

    Remembrance

    Ray Bradbury

    Iconic author of Fahrenheit 451, The Martian Chronicles, and Something Wicked This Way Comes, Ray Bradbury believed that, someday, a collection of his letters could illuminate the ...

  • Barnaby Rudge synopsis, comments

    Barnaby Rudge

    Charles Dickens & John Bowen

    'One of Dickens's most neglected, but most rewarding, novels' Peter AckroydSet against the backdrop of the Gordon Riots of 1780, Barnaby Rudge is a story of mystery and suspense wh...

  • The Penguin Book of Modern British Short Stories synopsis, comments

    The Penguin Book of Modern British Short Stories

    Malcolm Bradbury

    This anthology is in many was a ‘best of the best’, containing gems from thirtyfour of Britain's outstanding contemporary writers. It is a book to dip into, to read from cover to c...

  • Selected Essays synopsis, comments

    Selected Essays

    Samuel Johnson

    This volume contains a generous selection from the essays Johnson published twice weekly as 'The Rambler' in the early 1750s. It was here that he first created the literary charact...

  • The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Other Stories synopsis, comments

    The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Other Stories

    Leo Tolstoy, Ronald Wilks, Anthony Briggs & David McDuff

    This edition includes: The Death of Ivan Ilyich, Happy Ever After, and The Cossacks. Mortality was one of Tolstoy's most persistent themes, and all of the stories in this volume ar...

  • Confessions of an Italian synopsis, comments

    Confessions of an Italian

    Ippolito Nievo & Frederika Randall

    An overlooked classic of Italian literature, this epic and unforgettable novel recounts one man's long and turbulent life in revolutionary Italy.At the age of eightythree and neari...

  • A Pound of Paper synopsis, comments

    A Pound of Paper

    John Baxter

    In the rural Australia of the fifties where John Baxter grew up, reading books was disregarded with suspicion, owning and collecting them with utter incomprehension. Despite this,...

  • The Small Back Room synopsis, comments

    The Small Back Room

    Nigel Balchin

    A true modern classic, THE SMALL BACK ROOM is a towering novel of the Second World War.Sammy Rice is a weapons scientist, one of the 'back room boys' of the Second World War. A cri...

  • Greene on Capri synopsis, comments

    Greene on Capri

    Shirley Hazzard, Shirley Hazzard Steegmuller & The Estate of Shirley Hazzard Steegmuller

    The subtle portrait of a great but difficult man and a legendary island.When friends die, one's own credentials change: one becomes a survivor. Graham Greene has already had biogra...

  • The Princesse De Cleves synopsis, comments

    The Princesse De Cleves

    Madame Lafayette

    Set towards the end of the reign of Henry II of France, The Princesse de Clèves (1678) tells of the unspoken, unrequited love between the fair, noble Mme de Clèves, who is married ...

  • Effi Briest synopsis, comments

    Effi Briest

    Theodor Fontane & Hugh Rorrison

    Unworldly young Effi Briest is married off to Baron von Innstetten, an austere and ambitious civil servant twice her age, who has little time for his new wife. Isolated and bored, ...

  • Graham Greene synopsis, comments

    Graham Greene

    Robert H. Miller

    English novelist, shortstory writer, playwright and journalist, Graham Greene was one of the most widely read novelist of the 20thcentury, a superb storyteller. Adventure and suspe...

  • Dombey and Son synopsis, comments

    Dombey and Son

    Charles Dickens & Andrew Sanders

    'There's no writing against such power as this one has no chance' William Makepeace ThackerayA compelling depiction of a man imprisoned by his own pride, Dombey and Son explores t...

  • Scattershot synopsis, comments

    Scattershot

    Bernie Taupin

    NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER An evocative, cleareyed, and revealing memoir by Bernie Taupin, the lyrical master and longtime collaborator of Elton John“I loved writing, I loved chroni...

  • Darkness Falls from the Air synopsis, comments

    Darkness Falls from the Air

    Nigel Balchin

    The classic novel of the London Blitz, DARKNESS FALLS FROM THE AIR captures the chaos, absurdity and ultimately the tragedy of life during the bombardment.Featured on BACKLISTED po...

  • Romola synopsis, comments

    Romola

    George Eliot & Dorothea Barrett

    One of George Eliot's most ambitious and imaginative novels, Romola is set in Renaissance Florence during the turbulent years following the expulsion of the powerful Medici family ...

  • Graham Greene synopsis, comments

    Graham Greene

    Robert O. Evans

    This collection of fourteen essays by American and English scholarsmany of them hitherto unpublished and all of them selected with a view to avoiding the duplication of essays alre...

  • Our Woman in Havana synopsis, comments

    Our Woman in Havana

    Sarah Rainsford

    Graham Greene saw the Castros rise; Sarah Rainsford watched them leave. From the street where Wormold, the hapless hero of Greene’s Our Man in Havana, plied his trade, BBC foreign ...

  • Graham Greene synopsis, comments

    Graham Greene

    Fulvio Fulvi

    Graham Greene (19041991), ovvero un “incredulo cristiano”, era così consapevole delle sue fragilità da sperare che “Dio gli stesse sempre alle calcagna”, come confidava a una giorn...

  • The Madam and the Spymaster synopsis, comments

    The Madam and the Spymaster

    Urs Brunner, Nigel Jones & Julia Schrammel

    This extraordinary story of a highclass Berlin brotheltaken over by the Nazi secret serviceis one of the last untold tales of World War II. There is no book ...

  • The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman synopsis, comments

    The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman

    Angela Carter

    Desiderio, an employee of the city under a bizarre reality attack from Doctor Hoffman's mysterious machines, has fallen in love with Albertina, the Doctor's daughter. But Albertina...

  • Home at Grasmere synopsis, comments

    Home at Grasmere

    Dorothy Wordsworth & William Wordsworth

    A continuous text made up of extracts from Dorothy Wordsworth's Journal and a selection of her brother's poems. Dorothy Wordsworth kept her Journal 'because I shall give William pl...

  • The Quest For Graham Greene synopsis, comments

    The Quest For Graham Greene

    W. J. West

    W.J. West has unearthed and pieced together allnew material regarding Graham Greene, which sheds light into the darker regions of Greene's personal, religious, financial, and i...

  • The Travels of Sir John Mandeville synopsis, comments

    The Travels of Sir John Mandeville

    John Mandeville & Charles Moseley

    Ostensibly written by an English knight, the Travels purport to relate his experiences in the Holy Land, Egypt, India and China. Mandeville claims to have served in the Great Khan'...

  • The Book of the Courtier synopsis, comments

    The Book of the Courtier

    Baldesar Castiglione & George Bull

    In The Book of the Courtier (1528), Baldesar Castiglione, a diplomat and Papal Nuncio to Rome, sets out to define the essential virtues for those at Court. In a lively series of im...

  • Graham Greene synopsis, comments

    Graham Greene

    Robert Hoskins

    This study reveals Greene in a dual role as author, one who projects literary experience into his view of life and subsequently projects both his experience and its "literary" inte...