Graham Greene

Henry Graham Greene (1904–1991) was born on 2 October 1904 in Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire, where his father was headmaster of Berkhamsted School. He studied modern history at Balliol College, Oxford, converted to Catholicism in 1926, and worked as a journalist before publishing his first novel, The Man Within, in 1929.

Life and Career

Greene’s career is conventionally divided into two categories that he himself established: “novels” and “entertainments.” The distinction was always somewhat artificial — his “entertainments” are often more morally serious than his “novels” — but it reflects a genuine duality in his work between the literary and the popular.

The Catholic novels are his central achievement. Brighton Rock (1938) — about Pinkie Brown, a teenage gangster in Brighton who is both a murderer and a Catholic tormented by the reality of sin — is the first fully achieved novel. The Power and the Glory (1940) — about a “whisky priest” in anti-clerical Mexico who is both a sinner and a saint — is his masterpiece. The Heart of the Matter (1948) — about Major Scobie, a colonial police officer in West Africa who is destroyed by pity — and The End of the Affair (1951) — about a wartime love affair that becomes a story of miraculous intervention — complete the Catholic quartet.

These novels are remarkable for their refusal of piety. Greene’s Catholicism is not comforting — it is a religion of damnation and grace, in which sinners may be closer to God than the virtuous. His priests are drunks, his saints are adulterers, and the line between holiness and despair is invisible.

The “entertainments” and political novels are equally distinguished. The Third Man (1949/1950) — written as a treatment for Carol Reed’s film — gave the world Harry Lime and the sewers of Vienna. The Quiet American (1955) — about American intervention in French Indochina — is one of the most prescient political novels ever written. Our Man in Havana (1958) — about a vacuum-cleaner salesman who invents intelligence reports — is a perfect comic novel. The Comedians (1966), The Honorary Consul (1973), and The Human Factor (1978) are all major novels.

Greene was also a superb travel writer, essayist, and autobiographer. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize repeatedly but never won — one of the most conspicuous oversights in the history of the award.

Major Works and Themes

Greene’s great themes are faith and doubt, loyalty and betrayal, innocence and experience, and the moral ambiguity of political action. His fiction takes place in what has become known as “Greeneland” — a world of seedy hotels, tropical heat, colonial outposts, moral compromise, and the presence or absence of God.

His prose style is lean, precise, and atmospheric. He can establish a setting — the heat of West Africa, the seediness of Brighton, the tension of Saigon — in a sentence.

Critical Reception and Legacy

Greene is one of the towering figures of twentieth-century English literature. His influence on spy fiction (le Carré), political fiction, and Catholic fiction is immense. The failure to award him the Nobel Prize remains controversial.

Key Works

• Brighton Rock (1938)
• The Power and the Glory (1940)
• The Heart of the Matter (1948)
• The Third Man (1949)
• The End of the Affair (1951)
• The Quiet American (1955)
• Our Man in Havana (1958)
• The Honorary Consul (1973)

Collecting Greene

Greene is one of the most extensively collected twentieth-century authors.

The Man Within (1929, Heinemann) — the debut — brings $500–$2,000.

Brighton Rock (1938, Heinemann) — the breakthrough — is very valuable: $1,000–$5,000+ in dust jacket.

The Power and the Glory (1940, Heinemann) — the masterpiece — brings $500–$3,000 in jacket.

The Third Man (1950, Heinemann) brings $200–$800. Later titles are more available.

Heinemann (UK) and Viking (US) are the primary publishers. The UK Heinemann editions are generally preferred by collectors. Greene signed at book events; signed copies are available but increasingly valuable since his death in 1991. The limited editions published by Bodley Head in the 1970s–1980s are also collected.