Graham Greene A Literary Life Neil Sinyard Literary Lives General Editor: Richard Dutton, Professor of English, Lancaster University This series offers stimulating accounts of the literary careers of the most admired and influential English-language authors. Volumes follow the outline of the writers’ working lives, not in the spirit of traditional biography, but aiming to trace the professional, publishing and social contexts which shaped their writing. Published titles include: Clinton Machann Tony Sharpe MATTHEW ARNOLD T.S. ELIOT Jan Fergus Harold Pagliaro JANE AUSTEN HENRY FIELDING Tom Winnifrith and Edward Chitham Andrew Hook CHARLOTTE AND EMILY BRONTË F. SCOTT FITZGERALD Sarah Wood Mary Lago ROBERT BROWNING E.M. FORSTER Janice Farrar Thaddeus Shirley Foster FRANCES BURNEY ELIZABETH GASKELL Caroline Franklin Neil Sinyard BYRON GRAHAM GREENE Nancy A. Walker James Gibson KATE CHOPIN THOMAS HARDY Roger Sales Gerald Roberts JOHN CLARE GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS Cedric Watts Kenneth Graham JOSEPH CONRAD HENRY JAMES Grahame Smith W. David Kaye CHARLES DICKENS BEN JONSON George Parfitt Phillip Mallett JOHN DONNE RUDYARD KIPLING Paul Hammond John Worthen JOHN DRYDEN D.H. LAWRENCE Kerry McSweeney Angela Smith GEORGE ELIOT KATHERINE MANSFIELD Lisa Hopkins Tony Sharpe CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE WALLACE STEVENS Cedric C. Brown Joseph McMinn JOHN MILTON JONATHAN SWIFT Peter Davison Leonée Ormond GEORGE ORWELL ALFRED TENNYSON Linda Wagner-Martin Peter Shillingsburg SYLVIA PLATH WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY Felicity Rosslyn David Wykes ALEXANDER POPE EVELYN WAUGH Richard Dutton John Mepham WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE VIRGINIA WOOLF John Williams John Williams MARY SHELLEY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH Michael O’Neill Alasdair D.F. Macrae PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY W.B. YEATS Gary Waller EDMUND SPENSER Literary Lives Series Standing Order ISBN 0–333–71486–5 hardcover Series Standing Order ISBN 0–333–80334–5 paperback (outside North America only) You can receive future titles in this series as they are published by placing a standing order. Please contact your bookseller or, in case of difficulty, write to us at the address below with your name and address, the title of the series and one of the ISBNs quoted above. Customer Services Department, Macmillan Distribution Ltd, Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS, England Graham Greene A Literary Life Neil Sinyard © Neil Sinyard 2003 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1T 4LP. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2003 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 Companies and representatives throughout the world PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave Macmillan division of St. Martin’s Press, LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. Macmillan® is a registered trademark in the United States, United Kingdom and other countries. Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European Union and other countries. ISBN 0–333–72986–2 hardback This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Sinyard, Neil. Graham Greene: a literary life / Neil Sinyard. p. cm. — (Literary lives) Filmography: p. Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index. ISBN 0–333–72986–2 1. Greene, Graham, 1904–1991. 2. Novelists, English—20th century—Biography. 3. Screenwriters—Great Britain— Biography. I. Title. II. Literary lives (New York, N.Y.) PR6013.R44Z847 2003 823′.912—dc21 2003053572 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 Printed and bound in Great Britain by Antony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham and Eastbourne Contents Acknowledgements vi The Greene Chronology: Some Major Dates and Events 1 Introduction: Secret Sharer 9 1 Why Do I Write? 15 2 The Books in My Life 23 3 The Greene Routine 34 4 Greene on the Screen 42 5 Laughter in the Shadow of the Gallows 58 6 A Sort of Autobiography: Epigraphs and Dedications 77 7 The Green Baize Door 86 8 Poets of Criminality and Conscience: Greene and Hitchcock 96 Conclusion: Forgotten Memories 109 Notes 120 Select Bibliography 138 Filmography 143 Author Index 161 Subject Index 168 v Acknowledgements In a letter to J.A. Symons in the Spring of 1886, Robert Louis Stevenson recounted the shattering impact on him of reading Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment. ‘It was like having an illness,’ he said. ‘Some find it dull; Henry James couldn’t finish it; all I can say is, it nearly finished me.’ Writing this book has been something like that. I finished it; it nearly finished me. Every physical, psychological, methodological, mechanical thing that could go wrong did go wrong, whether it took the form of computer virus, printer breakdown, inexplicable deletion or disappearance of files, an embargo on primary research material that made it impossible to take advantage of a generous research grant, or a mysterious illness that developed into a morbid agoraphobia, undoubtedly the least helpful malady to contract when researching the most globe-trotting major author in history. I have written over twenty books and I mention this only in order to say, with feeling, that this one has been more trouble than all of the others put together. It is nevertheless still intended, to use Greene terminology, as ‘an entertainment’. I have even endeavoured to make the footnotes entertaining. This is not going to be one of those biographies that, to paraphrase D.J. Taylor on the recent book about Anthony Burgess by Roger Lewis (The Guardian, 8 November 2002), becomes an extended diary about the biographer’s problems with his subject and the prob- lems connected with the subject of biography. This introduction is simply to provide the context for the following list of people, to whom I wish to express my deep gratitude: without their inspiration and encouragement, direct or indirect, this book could never have been written. Chief amongst these are the members of the Graham Greene Birth- place Trust, with whom I have had close links since its foundation in 1998. Connection with the Trust has enabled me to have the privilege of meeting members of Greene’s family, including his daughter Caroline Bourget and his nephew Nicholas Dennys, who have been particularly gracious. Also the annual Greene Festival in Berkhamsted, which the Trust organises and which takes place around the time of vi Acknowledgements vii Greene’s birthday, has brought me into contact with some of the very finest scholars, directors and interpreters of Greene’s work, including (in alphabetical order) Judith Adamson, Martin Corner, Maria Couto, Peter Duffell, Leopoldo Duran, Quentin Falk, Bryan Forbes, Philip French, Christopher Hampton, Ian Hart, Giles Havergal, Maire McQueeney, Michael Meyer, Anthony Mockler, Norman Sherry, Martin Stannard, Cedric Watts and Stephen Woolley. This is by no means a definitive list of the distinguished speakers who have attended the Festival: these are simply the ones whose ideas I have had the good fortune to hear and/or discuss at this event, and I thank them all for the stimulus their thoughts have given me. My particular thanks, though, go to the organisers whose hospitality towards me has developed into lasting friendship: Roger and Joan Watkins, David and Liz Pearce, Ken and Jenny Sherwood. This book is affectionately dedicated to them, with an additional vote of thanks to all the members of the Trust who have shown me such kindness on my annual pilgrimage there. It used to be said of Leonard Bernstein that, when he got tired of American and British critics sniping at him, he would retire to Vienna where he knew he was assured of a warm welcome. For me it’s Berkhamsted. Considering his own view of the place, Graham Greene might have been intrigued and amused by that. I owe special thanks also to Ken Annakin, for talking to me of his experience of working with Greene on the film, Loser Takes All (1955); to Yan Christensen, for entrusting me to be the literary editor of the Greene Newsletter and for numerous acts of generosity, including a gift of a resplendent poster for the 1957 film of The Quiet American; and to Peter Duffell, for his courteous correspondence and the loan of his fascinating first screenplay for The Honorary Consul (1973), before the project was assigned elsewhere. Richard Dutton gently coaxed me into doing this book and has been the most patient of Series’ editors. The British Academy generously lent its support to this project. My colleagues at Hull University have been unfailingly supportive as always, and I have benefited particularly (in ways they may not always have sensed) from astute comments by James Booth, Angela Leighton, Rowlie Wymer and my much missed friend, the late Gillian West. My indispensable co-teacher in the Film Studies section, Melanie Williams has been a precious source of sym- pathetic and constructive advice. Ruth Green has always been viii Acknowledgements unstinting with valuable secretarial assistance. Above all, my brilliant family – my wife Lesley, and children Nathalie, Jessica and Joel – have done more than just cope with the turmoil of having to live with a Greene biographer (one of the most stressful of all domestic situations), and have done more than just provide the kind of loving environment that facilitates the writer’s task in keeping life’s priorities in perspective. At crucial stages in this narrative, they have solved seemingly impossible information technology problems that have baffled and defeated the experts, and on occasions they have even retrieved the irretrievable. In other words, they are not only compassion incarnate but computer literate as well: you cannot ask more of a family than that. Every effort has been made by the author and publishers to secure permissions for all relevant works, and if any have been missed we will be happy to rectify the situation at the earliest opportunity. The Greene Chronology: Some Major Dates and Events 1904–20 Henry Graham Greene is born on 2 October 1904 in Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire. Among his first words are ‘Poor dog’, a reference to his sister’s dead pug that had been run over by a carriage and carried home lying at baby Graham’s feet in his pram. He is the son of Charles Henry Greene, later to become headmaster of Berkhamsted school (1910–27), and Marion Raymond Greene, first cousin of one of Greene’s early literary heroes, Robert Louis Stevenson. Greene himself is the cousin of another of the century’s major writers, Christopher Isherwood. He is the fourth of six children, and the third of four boys who will grow into very tall men. His younger brother is Hugh, to whom he is very close and who will achieve eminence as the director-general of the BBC (1960–69). His elder brother is Raymond, his father’s favourite, school prefect and Head of House, who will go on to become a distin- guished doctor. His eldest brother is Herbert – according to Graham, the black sheep of the family and who is the model for the feckless and irresolute Anthony Farrant character in England Made Me (1935). Key event At the age of fourteen, he becomes a boarder at Berkhamsted School. The effect is traumatic: he is bullied and finds himself torn between loyalty to his father, on one side of the green baize door that separ- ates home from school, and loyalty to his school friends who rebel against the school’s authority. Greene will come to believe that the 1