Graham Greene

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Standard Name: Greene, Graham
Birth Name: Henry Graham Greene
An English novelist of exceptional energy, Graham Greene built a career spanning a dozen genres—most notably more than twenty novels or thrillers, as well as short stories, film reviews, travel books, plays, screenplays, and autobiography. Many of his novels wrestle with issues of belief. His personal correspondence included thousands of letters, and for much of his life he reported as a spy to the British Secret Intelligence Service . His restlessness drew him to dangerous places, adulterous relationships, self-harm, and a belief, infusing his pages, that a focus on squalor makes for an honest portrayal of the world.

Connections

Connections Sort descending Author name Excerpt
Literary responses Muriel Spark
This novel was chosen a Book Society recommendation (of which between six and ten were selected per month); it was not the choice of the month, since the panel felt it was too morbid—deeply...
Literary responses Muriel Spark
Graham Greene wrote to tell Spark that this was her best book since Memento Mori (as he was to do with several later titles as well).
Greene, Graham. Graham Greene. A Life in Letters. Editor Greene, Richard, Alfred A. Knopf.
309-10
Reviews were mixed, many sounding baffled. While admirers...
Literary responses Muriel Spark
Graham Greene offered the same accolade as for her previous novel, recognizing its disappointing reception with: What fools the reviewers have been.
Greene, Graham. Graham Greene. A Life in Letters. Editor Greene, Richard, Alfred A. Knopf.
317
A. S. Byatt admired the mocking and sinister games played by the...
Literary responses Marjorie Bowen
MB was admired in her own day by others who prided themselves on the popular touch in their writing: Mark Twain , Walter de la Mare , Compton Mackenzie , and Hugh Walpole , who...
Literary responses Muriel Spark
Frank Kermode , reviewing this novel in The Listener, commented that the great pleasures offered by this writer are contingent upon our being willing to work harder than usual.
Page, Norman. Muriel Spark. Macmillan.
119
Again Graham Greene complimented...
Literary responses Muriel Spark
Her friend Graham Greene hastened to offer his usual compliment of best-since-Memento Mori—this time after reading only the first three pages.
Greene, Graham. Graham Greene. A Life in Letters. Editor Greene, Richard, Alfred A. Knopf.
399
Claire Tomalin called it a novel about a hate affair...
Literary responses Shelagh Delaney
The play provoked controversy for its matter-of-fact treatment of illegitimate pregnancy, miscegenation, and (male) homosexuality. Some critics admired its freshness and grit, while others found it disgusting and self-indulgent. All agreed that it would have...
Literary responses Daphne Du Maurier
Many commentators, like Anne Armstrong of the Saturday Review and a reviewer in Punch, were shocked and disgusted
Kelly, Richard. Daphne du Maurier. Twayne.
46
by DDM 's cold portrayal of Julius.Graham Greene wrote a review of this novel...
Literary responses Kathleen Raine
Graham Greene responded to this book with what he called an enthusiastic if ignorant howl. Though he had already seen and admired some of her poems, he wrote, he had not realised the quantity of...
Literary responses Violet Trefusis
Graham Greene observed that this novel's style was rather consciously spangled with felicities.
Holroyd, Michael. “A Tale of Three Novels”. London Review of Books, Vol.
32
, No. 3, pp. 31-2.
31
Michael Holroyd , agreeing with Greene, thought it witty but not one of her better novels.
Holroyd, Michael. “A Tale of Three Novels”. London Review of Books, Vol.
32
, No. 3, pp. 31-2.
31
Literary responses Dorothy L. Sayers
Within Sayers's lifetime she had become a figure of controversy on account of the element of Christian partisanship in her non-fictional works. In The Emperor's Clothes, 1953, Kathleen Nott bracketed Sayers with T. S. Eliot
Literary responses Patricia Highsmith
Reviews were mixed. Both the New Statesman and the Times Literary Supplement were highly critical, the latter going so far as to call the book a depressingly . . . mechanical exercise in self-pastiche, employing...
Literary responses Patricia Highsmith
Graham Greene 's foreword observes that this story is hard to beat for pure physical horror, an effect rare in PH 's work.
Wilson, Andrew Norman. Beautiful Shadow: A Life of Patricia Highsmith. Bloomsbury.
267
Literary responses Pat Barker
Reviewer Lara Feigel found that PB 's allusions to actual, historical people (Paul sharing sentiments, his place of work, the circumstances of his falling in love, with Graham Greene ; Elinor owing something to Elizabeth Bowen
Literary responses Patricia Highsmith
She has been better appreciated in Britain than her native USA, and perhaps better in Europe than in Britain. Frank Richards wrote that she made a life's work of her ostracisation from the American...

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