Graham Greene

Disambiguation: Graham Greene (actor), born 1952

He was born Henry Graham Greene in Berkhamsted[?], Hertfordshire, where his father was headmaster of the local secondary school (which Graham attended). He went on to Balliol College, Oxford, and his first work (a volume of poetry) was published in 1925, while he was an undergraduate. In his autobiography, he gives many details of his difficult childhood. After graduation, he became a Catholic, was briefly married, and took up a career in journalism. Amongst other things, he was a film critic, until he caused the closedown of the magazine for which he worked by getting it involved in a libel action as a result of a comment he made about Shirley Temple.

His novels are written in a contemporary realistic style, often featuring characters troubled by self-doubt and living in seedy or rootless circumstances. The doubts were often of a religious nature, perhaps echoing the author's Roman Catholic beliefs.

Greene's books were originally divided into thrillers, mystery/suspense books that were cast as "entertainments" but which often included a notable philosophical edge, and the high literary books such as The Power and the Glory[?], on which his reputation was thought to be based. As his career lengthened, however, Greene and his readers both found the "entertainments" to be of nearly as high a value as the literary efforts, and Greene's later efforts such as The Human Factor[?], The Comedians[?], Our Man in Havana and The Quiet American[?] combine these modes into works of remarkable insight and compression.

In 2001, his book The Heart of the Matter was listed as one of the 100 best English language novels of the 20th century by the editorial board of the American Modern Library.

Verse

• Bubbling April 1925

Novels

• The Man Within[?] 1925
• The Name of Action[?] 1930
• Rumour at Nightfall[?] 1932
• Stamboul Train[?] 1932
• It's a Battlefield[?] 1934
• England Made Me[?] 1935
• Brighton Rock[?] 1938
• The Power and the Glory[?] 1940
• The Heart of the Matter 1948
• The Quiet American[?] 1955
• The Third Man 1950 (for a film by Carol Reed)
• The End of the Affair[?] 1951
• Our Man in Havana 1958
• A Burnt-Out Case[?] 1961
• The Comedians[?] 1965
• Travels with My Aunt 1969
• The Honorary Consul[?] 1973
• The Human Factor[?] 1978
• Doctor Fischer of Geneva[?] 1980
• Monsignor Quixote[?] 1982
• The Captain and the Enemy[?] 1982

Autobiography

• A Sort of Life 1971 (autobiography)
• Ways of Escape 1980 (autobiography)

Travel Books

• Journey Without Maps 1936
• The Lawless Roads 1939
• In Search of a Character: Two African Journals 1961

Plays

• The Living Room 1953
• The Potting Shed 1957
• The Complaisant Lover 1959