Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Graham Greene
-
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.
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...
Literary responses
Elizabeth Jane Howard
Arthur Koestler
described this, before publication, as a cross between Nancy Mitford
and Evelyn Waugh
. When EJH
told him she was having trouble finishing it, he said she had finished it, and written beyond...
Intertextuality and Influence
P. D. James
PDJ
followed the English tradition of detective-story writing that has continued from the 1920s and 1930s, a genre in which many women have held dominant positions. She spoke of her adolescent reading as influenced in...
Intertextuality and Influence
Marjorie Bowen
In his introduction to a later edition, Graham Greene
notes the effect of reading The Viper of Milan when he was in his teens. From that moment I began to write,
Greene, Graham, and Marjorie Bowen. “Introductory Note”. The Viper of Milan, Bodley Head, pp. 9-10.
9
he states, and...
Intertextuality and Influence
Rumer Godden
RG
found this negotiation among publishers traumatic. She had updated Shakespeare
's The Tempest in the spirit of the entertainments which Graham Greene
used to intersperse among his serious novels. Spencer Curtis
thought the story...
Intertextuality and Influence
Bernice Rubens
BR
's novel The Ponsonby Post, about an English diplomat in Java, seems to set foot in Graham Greene
territory.
British Books in Print. J. Whitaker and Sons.
1982
“Dictionary of Literary Biography online”. Gale Databases: Literature Resource Center-LRC.
207
Intertextuality and Influence
Beryl Bainbridge
The married couple Colin Haycraft
and Alice Thomas Ellis
(herself a writer) both worked at Gerald Duckworth
publishers, and met BB
while she was working there as a clerk. They taught her to write properly...
Friends, Associates
Elizabeth Bowen
Her travels nourished her friendships. She visited many friends on trips to the USA, including Eudora Welty
, and she met Graham Greene
when lecturing in Vienna.
Austin, Allan E. Elizabeth Bowen. Twayne.
3
Glendinning, Victoria. Elizabeth Bowen. Alfred A. Knopf.
