COLLECTED ESSAYS

By Graham Greene

Synopsis

Collected Essays contains nearly eighty essays, reviews and occasional pieces composed between novels, plays and travel books over four prolific decades. From Henry James and Somerset Maugham to Ho Chi Minh and Kim Philby, the range of subjects is eclectic and stimulating; his subjects brought vividly to life. The resulting collection is as revealing as autobiography and characteristically rich in humour, insight and doubt.

Sample Player

Narrator	Stephane Cornicard
Length	12hrs 32mins
Catalogue No.	18882
Publisher	Vintage Digital; 2020

Other audiobooks by Graham Greene

BRIGHTON ROCK

Half of London pours into Brighton on a Bank holiday, and one man dies on the beach. On the surface there is no mystery, but one woman senses a murder, and through her we meet Pinkie and are introduced to the labyrinth of sordid vice lying behind the esplanade at Brighton.

A BURNT-OUT CASE

Querry, a world-famous architect, is the victim of an attack of indifference, no longer finding meaning in art or pleasure in life. Arriving anonymously at a Congo leper village, he loses himself in work for the lepers. As he helps the lepers, so he approaches a self-cure.

THE CAPTAIN AND THE ENEMY

Victor Baxter is a young boy when a stranger known as "the Captain" collects him from school and takes him to London. He becomes the companion of a reclusive woman named Liza, who depends on him for any news of the outside world . From mysterious beginnings the novel becomes a thriller of smuggling, jewel theft and espionage.

THE COMEDIANS

Brown the hotelier, Smith, the innocent American and Jones, the confidence man, meet on a ship bound for Haiti, which is in the grip of the corrupt Papa Doc and the Tontons Macoute.

THE END OF THE AFFAIR

Maurice Bendrix's love affair with his friends wife began during the Blitz. When Sarah inexplicably and without warning broke off the relationship Maurice, was driven by jealousy and grief into hiring a detective to follow her.

THE FALLEN IDOL

This is the chilling story of a small boy caught up in the games that adults play. Left in the care of the butler and his wife whilst his parents go on a fortnight's holiday, Philip realises too late the danger of lies and deceit. But the truth is even deadlier.

GETTING TO KNOW THE GENERAL

'In August 1981 my bag was packed for my fifth visit to Panama when the news came to me over the telephone of the death of General Omar Torrijos Herrera, my friend and host. . . At that moment the idea came to me to write a short personal memoir. . . of a man I had grown to love over those five years' GETTING TO KNOW THE GENERAL is Graham Greene's account of a five-year personal involvement with Omar Torrijos, ruler of Panama from 1968-81 and Sergeant Chuchu, one of the few men in the National Guard whom the General trusted completely. It is a fascinating tribute to an inspirational politician in the vital period of his country's history, and to an unusual and enduring friendship.

A GUN FOR SALE

Raven is a ruthless assassin, a hired killer, whose cold-blooded murder of the Minister for War will have violent repercussions across Europe. As the nation prepares for battle, Raven goes on the run, hunted by the police and in search of the man who paid him in stolen banknotes, eventually unearthing the terrible truth behind his deadly assignment.

A GUN FOR SALE

Raven is an assassin and his brutal murder of the Minister brings with it the threat of war across Europe. As the nation prepares for battle Raven goes on the run, hunting the man who paid him and hunted himself by the police.

THE HEART OF THE MATTER

In West Africa, Scobie is a scrupulously honest senior police officer, but when he falls in love he is forced to betray everything he stands for and believes in, with tragic consequences.

THE HONORARY CONSUL

Charley Fortnum, the Honorary Consul, a whisky-sodden figure of dubious authority, is kidnapped by a group of revolutionaries. As local doctor, Eduardo Plarr, negotiates for Fortnum's release, their corruption becomes evident.

THE HUMAN FACTOR

When a leak is traced back to a small sub-section of SIS, it sparks off security checks, tensions and suspicions - the sort of atmosphere where mistakes could be made. This novel opens up the lonely, isolated, neurotic world of the Secret Service.

JOURNEY WITHOUT MAPS

Leaving Europe for the first time in his life, Graham Greene set out in 1935 to discover Liberia, then a virtually uncharted republic on the shores of West Africa. This captivating account of his arduous 350-mile journey on foot - a great adventure which took him from the border with Sierra Leone to the Atlantic coast at Grand Bassa - is as much a record of one young man's self-discovery as it is a striking insight into one of the few areas of Africa untouched by Western colonisation. Journey Without Maps is regarded as a masterclass in travel writing.

THE LAST WORD AND OTHER STORIES

These twelve stories, dating from 1923 to 1989, represent the quintessential Graham Greene. Rich in gallows humor, they have the power both to move and to entertain. Included here are such famous stories as "The Last Word", "The News in English", "The Lieutenant Died Last", and "The Lottery Ticket", as well as his masterly detective story "Murder for the Wrong Reason".

OUR MAN IN HAVANA

Wormold is a vacuum cleaner salesman in a city of power cuts, so when a mysterious Englishman offers him an extra income he's tempted. In return, all he has to do is carry out a little espionage and file a few reports. When his fake reports start coming true, Havana becomes a threatening place.

THE POWER AND THE GLORY

During a vicious persecution of the clergy in Mexico, a worldly priest, the 'whisky priest', is on the run. With the police closing in, his routes of escape are being shut off, his chances getting fewer. But compassion and humanity force him along the road to his destiny, reluctant to abandon those who need him, and those he cares for.

THE QUIET AMERICAN

Pyle, a naïve young American, is sent to Indo-China to promote democracy, but instead causes bloodshed. His friend Fowler, a cynical foreign correspondent, intervenes but is he doing so for politics or for love?

A SORT OF LIFE

The author recounts his early life from childhood to his first novel.

THE SPY'S BEDSIDE BOOK

When this book was first published in 1957 over one hundred copies were, apparently, purchased by East Germany's Intelligence Service. This anthology answers many questions about spying in a bygone age.

THE TENTH MAN

In a prison in Occupied France during the Second World War, the order is given that every tenth inmate is to be executed. Louis Chavel, a rich lawyer, draws the short straw and barters everything he owns to exchange places with another man and survive. Destitute but free, Chavel later returns to the house that he sold for his life, where he must face the consequences of his cowardice and seek redemption.

THE THIRD MAN

Post-war Vienna is a 'smashed dreary city' occupied by the four Allied powers. Rollo Martins, a second-rate novelist, arrives penniless to visit his friend and hero, Harry Lime. But Harry has died in suspicious circumstances, and with the police closing in, Rollo must find the third man who witnessed the murder of Harry Lime...

TRAVELS WITH MY AUNT

Henry Pulling meets his septuagenarian Aunt Augusta for the first time in over fifty years at his mother's funeral. She persuades Henry to abandon Southwood, and he joins a shiftless, twilight society mixing with hippies, smoking pot, meeting war criminals and CIA men and eventually coming alive after a dull suburban life.

TWENTY-ONE STORIES

Written between 1929 and 1954, each of these stories bears the hallmark themes that characterise Greene's great novels: betrayal and vengeance, love and hate, pity and violence. Opening with the iconic story 'The Destructors', in which a gang of schoolboys destroys a house that has survived the Blitz, Greene offers us deliciously satisfying glimpses into twenty-one worlds, with each piece written as masterfully as his novels. From the chilling climax of a children's birthday party, to a man whose youthful indiscretions come back to haunt him, these are the unmistakable work of one of the twentieth century's greatest and most adored storytellers.

WAYS OF ESCAPE

With superb skill and feeling, Graham Greene retraces the experiences and encounters of his extraordinary life. His restlessness is legendary; as if seeking out danger, Greene travelled to Haiti during the nightmare rule of Papa Doc, Vietnam in the last days of the French, Kenya during the Mau Mau rebellion. With ironic delight he recalls his time in the British Secret Service in Africa, and his brief involvement in Hollywood. He writes, as only he can, about people and places, about faith, doubt, fear and, not least, the trials and craft of writing.