88-406: Henry Graham Greene OM CH (2 October 1904 – 3 April 1991) was an English writer and journalist regarded by many as one of the leading novelists of the 20th century. Combining literary acclaim with widespread popularity, Greene acquired a reputation early in his lifetime as a major writer, both of serious Catholic novels , and of thrillers (or "entertainments" as he termed them). He
176-449: A libel lawsuit that Greene lost, but he was ultimately vindicated in the 1990s when the former mayor of Nice, Jacques Médecin , was imprisoned for corruption and associated crimes. In 1984, in celebration of his 80th birthday, the brewery which Greene's great-grandfather founded in 1799 made a special edition of its St. Edmund's Ale for him, with a special label in his honour. Commenting on turning 80, Greene said, "The big advantage ...
264-622: A second-class degree in history. After leaving Oxford, Greene worked as a private tutor and then turned to journalism; first on the Nottingham Journal , and then as a sub-editor on The Times . While he was still at Oxford, he had started corresponding with Vivien Dayrell-Browning , who had written to him to correct him on a point of Catholic doctrine. Greene was an agnostic, but when he later began to think about marrying Vivien, it occurred to him that, as he puts it in his autobiography A Sort of Life , he "ought at least to learn
352-604: A "Catholic agnostic". Beginning in 1946, Greene had an affair with Catherine Walston , the wife of Harry Walston , a wealthy farmer and future life peer . That relationship is generally thought to have informed the writing of The End of the Affair , published in 1951, when the relationship came to an end. Greene left his family in 1947, but Vivien refused to grant him a divorce, in accordance with Catholic teaching, and they remained married until Greene's death in 1991. Greene lived with manic depression ( bipolar disorder ). He had
440-558: A battle that he totally invented. This hoax was intended to persuade the French prime minister that Francisco Franco 's forces were weaker than they appeared and thus make the Republicans seem worthier candidates for help in obtaining arms. The ruse worked, and the French border was opened for a previously-stalled artillery shipment. In the late 1930s Cockburn's The Week was highly critical of Neville Chamberlain . Cockburn said in
528-532: A commemorative edition. In 2009, The Strand Magazine began to publish in serial form a newly discovered Greene novel titled The Empty Chair . The manuscript was written in longhand when Greene was 22 and newly converted to Catholicism. Greene's literary style was described by Evelyn Waugh in Commonweal as "not a specifically literary style at all. The words are functional, devoid of sensuous attraction, of ancestry, and of independent life". Commenting on
616-417: A contest for parodies of Greene's writing style, he submitted three entries under the names "M. Wilkinson", “N. Wilkinson" and "D.R. Cook". As "M. Wilkinson", he shared the prize (one guinea) with four other authors. He later wrote to the magazine revealing his identity and expressing regret that his other two entries had not won, "because prize money in these days is free of Income Tax." Greene's entry comprised
704-458: A few. The Nation , describing the many facets of Graham Greene The novels often portray the dramatic struggles of the individual soul from a Catholic perspective. Greene was criticised for certain tendencies in an unorthodox direction—in the world, sin is omnipresent to the degree that the vigilant struggle to avoid sinful conduct is doomed to failure, hence not central to holiness. His friend and fellow Catholic Evelyn Waugh attacked that as
792-648: A history of depression, which had a profound effect on his writing and personal life. In a letter to his wife, Vivien, he told her that he had "a character profoundly antagonistic to ordinary domestic life," and that "unfortunately, the disease is also one's material". Greene left Britain in 1966, moving to Antibes , to be close to Yvonne Cloetta, whom he had known since 1959, a relationship that endured until his death. In 1973, he had an uncredited cameo appearance as an insurance company representative in François Truffaut 's film Day for Night . In 1981, Greene
880-740: A neck ribbon (as a necklet ), while women wear theirs on a ribbon bow pinned to the left shoulder, and aides-de-camp may wear the insignia on their aiguillettes . Since 1991, the insignia must be returned upon the recipient's death. number appointment There have been no honorary members of the Order of Merit since the death of the last such member, Nelson Mandela , in December 2013. Secretary and Registrar : Robin Janvrin, Baron Janvrin GCB , GCVO , QSO , PC As
968-545: A novel, even though, as a work decidedly comic in tone, it appeared closer to his last two entertainments, Loser Takes All and Our Man in Havana , than to any of the novels. Greene, they speculated, seemed to have dropped the category of entertainment. This was soon confirmed. In the Collected Edition of Greene's works published in 22 volumes between 1970 and 1982, the distinction between novels and entertainments
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#17327727057901056-420: A painting he had done, which hung in the living room of the French house where the author spent the last years of his life. Greene did later voice doubts about Castro, telling a French interviewer in 1983, "I admire him for his courage and his efficiency, but I question his authoritarianism," adding: "All successful revolutions, however idealistic, probably betray themselves in time." Between 1944 and 1948, Greene
1144-642: A revival of the Quietist heresy. This aspect of his work also was criticised by the theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar , as giving sin a mystique. Greene responded that constructing a vision of pure faith and goodness in the novel was beyond his talents. Praise of Greene from an orthodox Catholic point of view by Edward Short is in Crisis Magazine , and a mainstream Catholic critique is presented by Joseph Pearce . Catholicism's prominence decreased in his later writings. The supernatural realities that haunted
1232-559: A silver nine-pointed breast star with the image of Minerva at its centre, along with a "straw-coloured" sash worn across the chest from the right shoulder. The motto of the Order would be "Omnia posthabita scientiae" (in Latin , 'Everything comes after science'). Once the King's proposal was made public, however, arguments within intellectual circles over who would be most deserving of the new order grew so heated that George ultimately dropped
1320-552: A substantial fragment that was published posthumously in The Graham Greene Film Reader (1993) and No Man's Land (2005). A script for The Stranger's Hand was written by Guy Elmes on the basis of Greene's unfinished story, and filmed by Soldati in 1954. In 1965, Greene again entered a similar New Statesman competition pseudonymously, and won an honourable mention. Member of the Order of Merit The Order of Merit (French: Ordre du Mérite )
1408-488: A weekly column for The Irish Times . There he famously stated, "Wherever there is a stink in international affairs, you will find that Henry Kissinger has recently visited". Among his novels were Beat the Devil (originally under the pseudonym James Helvick), The Horses , Ballantyne's Folly , and Jericho Road . Beat the Devil was made into a film in 1953 by the director John Huston , who paid Cockburn £3,000 for
1496-409: A world that is paper-thin". Only in recovering the religious element, the awareness of the drama of the struggle in the soul that carries the permanent consequence of salvation or damnation, and of the ultimate metaphysical realities of good and evil, sin and divine grace , could the novel recover its dramatic power. Suffering and unhappiness are omnipresent in the world Greene depicts; and Catholicism
1584-587: Is an order of merit for the Commonwealth realms , recognising distinguished service in the armed forces, science, art, literature, or the promotion of culture. Established in 1902 by Edward VII , admission into the order remains the personal gift of its Sovereign—currently Edward VII's great-great-grandson Charles III —and is restricted to a maximum of 24 living recipients from the Commonwealth realms, plus honorary members. While all members are awarded
1672-405: Is no longer maintained. All are novels. Greene was one of the more "cinematic" of twentieth-century writers; most of his novels and many of his plays and short stories have been adapted for film or television . The Internet Movie Database lists 66 titles between 1934 and 2010 based on Greene material. Some novels were filmed more than once, such as Brighton Rock in 1947 and 2011, The End of
1760-464: Is presented against a background of unvarying human evil, sin, and doubt. V. S. Pritchett praised Greene as the first English novelist since Henry James to present, and grapple with, the reality of evil. Greene concentrated on portraying the characters' internal lives—their mental, emotional, and spiritual depths. His stories are often set in poor, hot and dusty tropical places such as Mexico, West Africa, Vietnam, Cuba, Haiti, and Argentina, which led to
1848-736: Is that at 80 you are more likely these days to beat out encountering your end in a nuclear war," adding, "the other side of the problem is that I really don't want to survive myself [which] has nothing to do with nukes, but with the body hanging around while the mind departs." In 1986, Greene was awarded Britain's Order of Merit . He died of leukaemia in 1991 at the age of 86, and was buried in Corseaux cemetery. Greene originally divided his fiction into two genres: thrillers ( mystery and suspense books), such as The Ministry of Fear , which he described as entertainments, often with notable philosophic edges; and literary works, such as The Power and
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#17327727057901936-559: Is widely quoted in journalistic studies, but he did not claim credit for originating it. He was the second cousin, once removed, of the novelists Alec Waugh and Evelyn Waugh . He lived at Brook Lodge, Youghal , County Cork , Ireland. In 1940 Cockburn's Security Service file said that "In 1939 he was a leading British Communist Party member and was said to be a leader of the Comintern in Western Europe". Cockburn
2024-638: The Batista regime in Cuba , Greene played a small role in helping the revolutionaries, as a secret courier transporting warm clothing for Castro's rebels hiding in the hills during the Cuban winter. Castro, like Daniel Ortega and Omar Torrijos , was one of several Latin American leaders Greene's friendship with whom has led some commentators to question his commitment to democracy. After one visit Castro gave Greene
2112-640: The Congo Basin and in what were then the British Cameroons . During this trip in late February and early March 1959, Greene met several times with Andrée de Jongh , a leader in the Belgian resistance during WWII, who famously established an escape route to Gibraltar through the Pyrenees for downed allied airmen. In 1957, just months after Fidel Castro began his final revolutionary assault on
2200-631: The Dominions of the British Empire became independent countries within the empire, equal in status to the UK, the Order of Merit continued as an honour open to all these realms and, in many, became a part of their newly developing national honours systems. The order's statutes were amended in 1935 to include members of the Royal Air Force and, in 1969, the definition of honorary recipients
2288-514: The Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia , stated that the Order of Merit was the highest civilian award for merit a Canadian could receive. Some orders of precedence are as follows: Order of wear Claud Cockburn Francis Claud Cockburn ( / ˈ k oʊ b ər n / KOH -bərn ; 12 April 1904 – 15 December 1981) was a British journalist . His saying "believe nothing until it has been officially denied"
2376-539: The Royal Academy of Arts , advised against the new order, primarily because of its selection process. It was Victoria's son Edward VII who eventually founded the Order of Merit on 26 June 1902 (the date for which his coronation had been originally scheduled ) as a means to acknowledge "exceptionally meritorious service in Our Navy and Our Army, or who may have rendered exceptionally meritorious service towards
2464-584: The 1950s, but in his final years began to receive the sacraments again from Father Leopoldo Durán, a Spanish priest, who became a friend. In one of his final works, a pamphlet titled J'Accuse: The Dark Side of Nice (1982), Greene wrote of a legal matter that embroiled him and his extended family in Nice , and declared that organised crime flourished in Nice because the city's upper levels of civic government protected judicial and police corruption. The accusation provoked
2552-656: The 1960s that much of the information in The Week had been leaked to him by Sir Robert Vansittart , Permanent Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office . At the same time, Cockburn said that the Security Service ( MI5 ) was spying on him because of The Week , but the British historian D. C. Watt argued that it was more likely that if anyone was spying on Cockburn, it was the police Special Branch , which
2640-443: The Affair in 1955 and 1999, and The Quiet American in 1958 and 2002 . The 1936 thriller A Gun for Sale was filmed at least five times under different titles, notably This Gun for Hire in 1942. Greene received an Academy Award nomination for the screenplay for Carol Reed 's The Fallen Idol (1948), adapted from his own short story The Basement Room . He also wrote several original screenplays. In 1949, after writing
2728-472: The BBC , and his elder brother, Raymond , an eminent physician and mountaineer. His parents, Charles Henry Greene and Marion Raymond Greene, were first cousins , both members of a large, influential family that included the owners of Greene King Brewery , bankers, and statesmen; his grandmother Jane Wilson was first cousin to Robert Louis Stevenson . Charles Greene was second master at Berkhamsted School, where
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2816-740: The British communist newspaper, the Daily Worker . In 1936, Harry Pollitt , General Secretary of the Communist Party of Great Britain , asked him to cover the Spanish Civil War . Cockburn joined the Fifth Regiment to report the war as a soldier. While in Spain, he published Reporter in Spain . According to the editor of a volume of his writings on Spain, Cockburn formed a personal relationship with Mikhail Koltsov , "then
2904-486: The Glory , which he described as novels, on which he thought his literary reputation was to be based. As his career lengthened, both Greene and his readers found the distinction between "entertainments" and "novels" to be less evident. The last book Greene termed an entertainment was Our Man in Havana in 1958. When Travels with My Aunt was published eleven years later, many reviewers noted that Greene had designated it
2992-530: The Glory . The next two books, The Name of Action (1930) and Rumour at Nightfall (1932), were unsuccessful, and he later disowned them. His first true success was Stamboul Train (1932) which was taken on by the Book Society and adapted as the film Orient Express , in 1934. Although Greene objected strongly to being described as a Roman Catholic novelist, rather than as a novelist who happened to be Catholic, Catholic religious themes are at
3080-487: The John J. Burns Library, at Boston College . Part of Greene's reputation as a novelist is for weaving the characters he met and the places where he lived into the fabric of his novels. Greene first left Europe at 30 years of age in 1935 on a trip to Liberia that produced the travel book Journey Without Maps . His 1938 trip to Mexico to see the effects of the government's campaign of forced anti-Catholic secularisation
3168-592: The Order of Merit is open to the citizens of 15 countries, each with their own system of orders, decorations, and medals, the order's place of precedence varies from country to country. While, in the United Kingdom, the order's postnominal letters follow those of Knights and Dames Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath , membership in the Order of Merit itself gives members no place in any of the orders of precedence in
3256-425: The Order of Merit, members are entitled to use the post-nominal letters OM and are entrusted with the badge of the order. The insignia consists of a badge, which consists of a golden crown from which is suspended a red enamelled cross pattée , itself centred by a disk of blue enamel, surrounded by a laurel wreath . The obverse of the badge's central disk bears the words FOR MERIT in gold lettering, while
3344-514: The Order, having been admitted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1968, when he was 47 years old. Robin Eames , Baron Eames represented the order at the coronation of Charles III and Camilla on 6 May 2023. All citizens of the Commonwealth realms are eligible for appointment to the Order of Merit. There may be, however, only 24 living individuals in the order at any given time, not including honorary appointees, and new members are personally selected by
3432-644: The Soviet NKVD . Specifically, to undermine anti-Stalinist factions on the Republican side , Cockburn falsely reported that the anti-Stalinist figurehead Andrés Nin , who had been tortured and executed by the NKVD, was alive and well after escaping to fascist territory. According to writer Adam Hochschild , Cockburn functioned as Stalinist propagandist during the war "on [Communist] Party orders". In one instance, Cockburn claimed to have been an eyewitness to
3520-614: The US, wrote for Village Voice, the Nation and CounterPunch; Andrew became the Washington editor of Harper'; Patrick also published a biography of his father. Cockburn's granddaughters include RadioNation host Laura Flanders , ex- BBC Economics editor Stephanie Flanders , and actress Olivia Wilde . Cockburn's son Patrick Cockburn published a biography of his father, Believe Nothing Until It Is Officially Denied: Claud Cockburn and
3608-461: The United Kingdom . However, Stanley Martin says in his book The Order of Merit 1902–2002: One Hundred Years of Matchless Honour , that the Order of Merit is the pinnacle of the British honours system. Similarly, though it was not listed in the Canadian order of precedence for honours, decorations, and medals until December 2010, Christopher McCreery, an expert on Canadian honours and secretary to
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3696-564: The advancement of Art, Literature and Science". All modern aspects of the order were established under his direction, including the division for military figures. From the outset, prime ministers attempted to propose candidates or lobbied to influence the monarch's decision on appointments. But, the Royal Household adamantly guarded information about potential names. After 1931, when the Statute of Westminster came into effect and
3784-503: The by then long-widowed Queen a draft constitution for an Order of Merit in Science and Art, consisting of one grade split into two branches of knighthood: the Order of Scientific Merit, for Knights of Merit in Science, with the post-nominal letters KMS , and the Order of Artistic Merit, for Knights of Merit in Art, with the post-nominal letters KMA . However, Frederic Leighton , President of
3872-457: The cleric "on the ground of dogmatic atheism", as Greene's primary difficulty with religion was what he termed the "if" surrounding God's existence. He found, however, that "after a few weeks of serious argument the 'if' was becoming less and less improbable", and Greene converted and was baptised after vigorous arguments initially with the priest in which he defended atheism , or at least the "if" of agnosticism . Late in life, Greene called himself
3960-516: The coining of the expression "Greeneland" to describe such settings. A stranger with no shortage of calling cards: devout Catholic, lifelong adulterer, pulpy hack, canonical novelist; self-destructive, meticulously disciplined, deliriously romantic, bitterly cynical; moral relativist, strict theologian, salon communist, closet monarchist; civilized to a stuffy fault and louche to drugged-out distraction, anti-imperialist crusader and postcolonial parasite, self-excoriating and self-aggrandizing, to name just
4048-555: The criticism. In 1954, Greene travelled to Haiti , where The Comedians (1966) is set, and which was then under the rule of dictator François Duvalier , known as "Papa Doc", frequently staying at the Hotel Oloffson in Port-au-Prince . He visited Haiti again in the late 1950s. As inspiration for his novel A Burnt-Out Case (1960), Greene spent time travelling around Africa visiting a number of leper colonies in
4136-519: The disaster he inflicted on the Vietnamese. In Ways of Escape , reflecting on his Mexican trip, he complained that Mexico's government was insufficiently left-wing compared with Cuba's. In Greene's opinion, "Conservatism and Catholicism should be ... impossible bedfellows". In human relationships, kindness and lies are worth a thousand truths. In April 1949, when the New Statesman held
4224-529: The earlier work declined and were replaced by a humanistic perspective, a change reflected in his public criticism of orthodox Catholic teaching. In his later years, Greene was a strong critic of American imperialism and sympathised with the Cuban leader Fidel Castro , whom he had met. Years before the Vietnam War , he prophetically attacked the idealistic but arrogant beliefs of The Quiet American , whose certainty in his own virtue kept him from seeing
4312-473: The first two paragraphs of a novel, apparently set in Italy, The Stranger's Hand: An Entertainment . Greene's friend Mario Soldati , a Piedmontese novelist and film director, believed it had the makings of a suspense film about Yugoslav spies in postwar Venice . Upon Soldati's prompting, Greene continued writing the story as the basis for a film script. Apparently he lost interest in the project, leaving it as
4400-666: The foreign editor of Pravda and, in Cockburn's view, 'the confidant and mouthpiece and direct agent of Stalin in Spain'". Cockburn's reporting in Spain, as "Frank Pitcairn", was heavily criticised by George Orwell in his 1938 memoir Homage to Catalonia . Orwell accused Cockburn of being under the control of Stalinist handlers and was critical of Cockburn's depiction of the Barcelona May Days in which Orwell had taken part and during which anti-Stalinist communists and anarchists were caught and executed by operatives of
4488-470: The headmaster was Dr Thomas Fry , who was married to Charles' cousin. Another cousin was the right-wing pacifist Ben Greene , whose politics led to his internment during World War II . In his childhood, Greene spent his summers at Harston House , the Cambridgeshire home of his uncle, Sir Graham Greene . In Greene's description of his childhood, he describes his learning to read there: "It
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#17327727057904576-576: The honours, with "Small Earthquake in Chile, Not many dead". No copy of The Times featuring that headline has been located although it finally appeared decades after the recollection in Not the Times , a spoof version of the newspaper produced by several journalists at The Times in 1979 during the paper's year-long absence because of an industrial dispute. Under the alias Frank Pitcairn, Cockburn contributed to
4664-633: The idea, though he briefly reconsidered it in 1789; on 6 February of that year, he revised the design of the order, with the breast star to have sixteen points, the motto to be the Latin for "Learning improves character" and with membership to include distinguished scientists. Following the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, First Lord of the Admiralty Charles Middleton, 1st Baron Barham and William Pitt exchanged correspondence concerning
4752-479: The ideas for the novel often considered his masterpiece, The Power and the Glory . By the 1950s, Greene had become known as one of the finest writers of his generation. As his career lengthened, both Greene and his readers found the distinction between his 'entertainments' and novels increasingly problematic. The last book Greene termed an entertainment was Our Man in Havana in 1958. Greene also wrote short stories and plays, which were well received, although he
4840-501: The journalist Claud Cockburn and the historian Peter Quennell . Greene contributed several stories to the school magazine, one of which was published by a London evening newspaper in January 1921. He attended Balliol College, Oxford , to study history. During 1922 Greene was for a short time a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain , and sought an invitation to the new Soviet Union , of which nothing came. In 1925, while he
4928-414: The last person so honoured. Honorary members form another group, to which there is no numerical limit, though such appointments are rare; individuals from countries in the Commonwealth of Nations that are not headed by King Charles are therefore considered foreigners, and thus are granted only honorary admissions, such as Nelson Mandela (South Africa) and Mother Teresa (India). Upon admission into
5016-565: The lean prose and its readability, Richard Jones wrote in the Virginia Quarterly Review that "nothing deflects Greene from the main business of holding the reader's attention". Greene's novels often have religious themes at their centre. In his literary criticism he attacked the modernist writers Virginia Woolf and E. M. Forster for having lost the religious sense which, he argued, resulted in dull, superficial characters, who "wandered about like cardboard symbols through
5104-474: The magazine Night and Day . Greene's 1937 film review of Wee Willie Winkie , for Night and Day —which said that the nine-year-old star, Shirley Temple , displayed "a dubious coquetry" which appealed to "middle-aged men and clergymen"—provoked Twentieth Century Fox successfully to sue for £3,500 plus costs, and Greene left the UK to live in Mexico until after the trial was over. While in Mexico, Greene developed
5192-475: The matter; it was recorded in his diary that he met Sir Robert Peel on 16 January 1844 to discuss the "idea of institution of a civil Order of Merit" and, three days later, he conferred with the Queen on the subject. Though nothing came of the idea at the time, the concept did not wither and, more than 40 years later, on 5 January 1888, Prime Minister Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury submitted to
5280-584: The nature and limits of the beliefs she held". Greene was baptised on 26 February 1926 and they married on 15 October 1927 at St Mary's Church, Hampstead , London. He published his first novel, The Man Within , in 1929; its favourable reception enabled him to work full-time as a novelist. Greene originally divided his fiction into two genres (which he described as "entertainments" and "novels"): thrillers—often with notable philosophic edges—such as The Ministry of Fear ; and literary works—on which he thought his literary reputation would rest—such as The Power and
5368-492: The novella as "raw material", he wrote the screenplay for a classic film noir , The Third Man , also directed by Reed and featuring Orson Welles . In 1983, The Honorary Consul , published ten years earlier, was released as a film (under the title Beyond the Limit in some territories), starring Michael Caine and Richard Gere . Author and screenwriter Michael Korda contributed a foreword and introduction to this novel in
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#17327727057905456-537: The possible creation of an order of merit, though nothing came of the idea. Later, Queen Victoria , her courtiers , and politicians alike, thought that a new order, based on the Prussian order Pour le Mérite , would make up for the insufficient recognition offered by the established honours system to achievement outside public service, in fields such as art, music, literature, industry and science. Victoria's husband, Albert, Prince Consort , took an interest in
5544-447: The reigning monarch of the realms, currently Charles III , with the assistance of his private secretaries; the order has thus been described as "quite possibly, the most prestigious honour one can receive on planet Earth." Within the limited membership is a designated military division, with its own unique insignia; though it has not been abolished, it is currently unpopulated, Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma having been
5632-425: The rest of the day. His writing influences included Henry James , Robert Louis Stevenson , H. Rider Haggard , Joseph Conrad , Ford Madox Ford , Marcel Proust , Charles Péguy and John Buchan . Throughout his life, Greene travelled to what he called the world's wild and remote places. In 1941, the travels led to his being recruited into MI6 by his sister, Elisabeth, who worked for the agency. Accordingly, he
5720-414: The reverse bears the royal cypher of the reigning monarch in gold. The insignia for the military grouping is distinguished by a pair of crossed swords behind the central disk. The ribbon of the Order of Merit is divided into two stripes of red and blue. The neck ribbon is 50mm in width, while the ribbon bar width is the standard British 32mm size for military or civilian wear. Men wear their badges on
5808-425: The right to use the post-nominal letters OM and wear the badge of the order, the Order of Merit's precedence among other honours differs between countries. In around 1773, George III considered establishing an order of knighthood to be called the "Order of Minerva " with membership restricted to 24 distinguished artists and authors. Knights would be entitled to the post-nominal letters KM , and would wear
5896-522: The rights to the book and screenplay. Cockburn collaborated with Huston on the early drafts of the script, but the credit went to Truman Capote . The title was later used by Cockburn's son Alexander for his regular column in The Nation . He published Bestseller , an exploration of English popular fiction, Aspects of English History (1957), The Devil's Decade (1973), his history of the 1930s and Union Power (1976). His first volume of memoirs
5984-521: The root of much of his writing, especially Brighton Rock , The Power and the Glory , The Heart of the Matter , and The End of the Affair , which have been named "the gold standard" of the Catholic novel. Several works, such as The Confidential Agent , The Quiet American , Our Man in Havana , The Human Factor , and his screenplay for The Third Man , also show Greene's avid interest in
6072-651: The scenes. The Week ceased publication shortly after the war began. Watt alleges that the information printed in The Week included rumours, some of which suited Moscow's interests. Watt used as an example the claim The Week made in February–March 1939 that German troops were concentrating in Klagenfurt for an invasion of Yugoslavia , which Watt says had no basis in reality. In 1947, Cockburn moved to Ireland and lived at Ardmore , County Waterford . He continued to contribute to newspapers and journals, including
6160-467: The school as a boarder. Bullied and profoundly depressed, he made several suicide attempts, including, as he wrote in his autobiography, by Russian roulette and by taking aspirin before going swimming in the school pool. In 1920, aged 16, in what was a radical step for the time, he was sent for psychoanalysis for six months in London, afterwards returning to school as a day student. School friends included
6248-613: The workings and intrigues of international politics and espionage. In early 1930s Green moved to the left politically. He read left-wing writers like G.D.H. Cole and John Strachey ; in 1933 he joined the Independent Labour Party . This move to the left is reflected in the characters and plot of his fifth novel It's A Battlefield . His later political affiliations and convictions were more ambiguous. He supplemented his novelist's income with freelance journalism, book and film reviews for The Spectator , and co-editing
6336-412: Was always first and foremost a novelist. His first play, The Living Room , debuted in 1953. Michael Korda , a lifelong friend and later his editor at Simon & Schuster , observed Greene at work: Greene wrote in a small black leather notebook with a black fountain pen and would write approximately 500 words. Korda described this as Graham's daily penance—once he finished he put the notebook away for
6424-470: Was an agnostic , but was baptised into the Catholic faith in 1926 after meeting his future wife Vivien Dayrell-Browning . They were married on 15 October 1927 at St Mary's Church, Hampstead, north London. The Greenes had two children, Lucy Caroline (born 1933) and Francis (born 1936). In his discussions with Father Trollope, the priest to whom he went for instruction in Catholicism , Greene argued with
6512-450: Was an undergraduate at Balliol, his first work, a poorly received volume of poetry titled Babbling April , was published. Greene had periodic bouts of depression while at Oxford, and largely kept to himself. Of Greene's time at Oxford, his contemporary Evelyn Waugh noted that: "Graham Greene looked down on us (and perhaps all undergraduates) as childish and ostentatious. He certainly shared in none of our revelry." He graduated in 1925 with
6600-496: Was at Harston I quite suddenly found that I could read—the book was Dixon Brett, Detective . I didn't want anyone to know of my discovery, so I read only in secret, in a remote attic, but my mother must have spotted what I was at all the same, for she gave me Ballantyne's Coral Island for the train journey home—always an interminable journey with the long wait between trains at Bletchley ..." In 1910, Charles Greene succeeded Dr Fry as headmaster of Berkhamsted. Graham also attended
6688-721: Was awarded the Jerusalem Prize , awarded to writers concerned with the freedom of the individual in society. He lived the last years of his life in Vevey , on Lake Geneva in Switzerland, the same town Charlie Chaplin was living in at this time. He visited Chaplin often, and the two were good friends. His book Doctor Fischer of Geneva or the Bomb Party (1980) is based on themes of combined philosophical and geographical influences. He ceased going to mass and confession in
6776-449: Was awarded the 1968 Shakespeare Prize and the 1981 Jerusalem Prize . Several of his stories have been filmed, some more than once, and he collaborated with filmmaker Carol Reed on The Fallen Idol (1948) and The Third Man (1949). He converted to Catholicism in 1926 after meeting his future wife, Vivien Dayrell-Browning . Later in life he took to calling himself a "Catholic agnostic". He died in 1991, aged 86, of leukemia , and
6864-477: Was born in Peking (present-day Beijing ), China, on 12 April 1904, the son of Henry Cockburn , a British consul general , and wife Elizabeth Gordon (née Stevenson). His paternal great-grandfather was Scottish judge/biographer Henry Cockburn, Lord Cockburn . Cockburn was educated at Berkhamsted School , Berkhamsted , Hertfordshire , and Keble College , Oxford , graduating with a Bachelor of Arts . At Oxford he
6952-522: Was buried in Corseaux cemetery in Switzerland . William Golding called Greene "the ultimate chronicler of twentieth-century man's consciousness and anxiety". Henry Graham Greene was born in 1904 in St John's House, a boarding house of Berkhamsted School , Hertfordshire, where his father was house master. He was the fourth of six children; his younger brother, Hugh , became Director-General of
7040-460: Was director at Eyre & Spottiswoode under chairman Douglas Jerrold , in charge of developing its fiction list. Greene created The Century Library series, which was discontinued after he left following a conflict with Jerrold regarding Anthony Powell 's contract. In 1958, Greene was offered the position of chairman by Oliver Crosthwaite-Eyre , but declined. He was a director at The Bodley Head from 1957 to 1968 under Max Reinhardt . Greene
7128-429: Was expanded to include members of the Commonwealth of Nations that are not realms. The order has always been open to women, Florence Nightingale being the first woman to receive the honour, in 1907. Several individuals have refused admission into the Order of Merit, including Rudyard Kipling , A. E. Housman , and George Bernard Shaw . Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh , remains the youngest person ever inducted into
7216-529: Was less experienced in that work than MI5. However, a 1940 Security Service file on Cockburn was later made public, and Claud's son Patrick Cockburn applied for his MI5 files and received 24 volumes of them. Cockburn was an opponent of appeasement before the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact . In a 1937 article in The Week , Cockburn coined the term " Cliveden set " to describe what he alleged to be an upper-class pro-German group that exercised influence behind
7304-628: Was paid for by the publishing company Longman , thanks to his friendship with Tom Burns . That voyage produced two books, the nonfiction The Lawless Roads (published as Another Mexico in the US) and the novel The Power and the Glory . In 1953, the Holy Office informed Greene that The Power and the Glory was damaging to the reputation of the priesthood; but later, in a private audience with Greene, Pope Paul VI told him that, although parts of his novels would offend some Catholics, he should ignore
7392-609: Was part of the Hypocrites' Club . He became a journalist with The Times and worked as a foreign correspondent in Germany and the United States before he resigned in 1933 to start his own newsletter, The Week . It has been said that during his spell as a sub-editor on The Times , Cockburn and colleagues competed (with a small prize for the winner) to write the dullest printed headline. Cockburn only once claimed
7480-467: Was posted to Sierra Leone during the Second World War. Kim Philby , who would later be revealed as a Soviet agent, was Greene's supervisor and friend at MI6. Greene resigned from MI6 in 1944. He later wrote an introduction to Philby's 1968 memoir, My Silent War . Greene also corresponded with intelligence officer and spy, John Cairncross , for forty years and that correspondence is held by
7568-544: Was published as In Time of Trouble (1956) in the United Kingdom and as A Discord of Trumpets in the United States. It was followed by Crossing the Line (1958), and A View from the West (1961). Revised, they were published by Penguin as I, Claud... in 1967. Again revised and shortened, with a new chapter, they were republished as Cockburn Sums Up shortly before he died. He also wrote Mr. Mintoff Comes to Ireland . The book
7656-495: Was published in 1975 but set in 1980 when Dom Mintoff was Malta 's Prime Minister and leader of the Malta Labour Party. The cover description describes it as a "shrewd assessment of how a small independent nation may best stand up to the so-called Great Powers". Claud Cockburn married twice, and all of his wives and partners were also journalists. Cockburn's three sons are all journalists: Alexander , who moved to
7744-645: Was shortlisted for the Nobel Prize in Literature several times. Through 67 years of writing, which included over 25 novels, he explored the conflicting moral and political issues of the modern world. The Power and the Glory won the 1941 Hawthornden Prize and The Heart of the Matter won the 1948 James Tait Black Memorial Prize and was shortlisted for the Best of the James Tait Black . Greene
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