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.
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
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.
She acquired new literary friends after her religious conversion, such as Allen Tate
, Neville
and June Braybrooke
(the latter of whom wrote as Isobel English
, and titled two of her novels at Spark's...
Wealth and Poverty
Muriel Spark
She was assisted during her illness (at the behest of Derek Stanford
)
Stannard, Martin. Muriel Spark. The Biography. Weidenfeld and Nicolson.
161
by many friends, and treated without fees by her doctor, also an old friend. Throughout her convalescence she was supported by...
Material Conditions of Writing
Muriel Spark
MS
began her career as a novelist in illness and under financial stress. In 1954, Macmillan
, who were looking for promising new writers, invited her to write a novel. Although ill and unable to...
Textual Production
Zadie Smith
ZS
excels at what could be called appreciation pieces. She published a hyperbolic and loving eulogy on the recently dead Katharine Hepburn
in 2003, and a fine assessment of Graham Greene
for his centenary in...
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
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
Occupation
Naomi Royde-Smith
She covered drama criticism for two years, but remained literary editor for a decade.
Eliot, T. S. The Letters of T.S. Eliot. Editor Eliot, Valerie, Faber and Faber.
1: 149n1
Mary Agnes Hamilton
wrote later: she was a wonderful editor, whose discoveries were endless.
Hamilton, Mary Agnes. Remembering My Good Friends. Jonathan Cape.
137
Her list of...
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...
Set in an unnamed town, which is clearly Brighton, the novel is, as Giles Gordon
describes it, a Graham Greene
thriller as if reworked by a somewhat romantic Burroughs
.
Gordon, Giles, and Ann Quin. “Introduction”. Berg, 1st Dalkey Archive edition, Dalkey Archive, p. vii - xiv.
