The Unquiet Englishman

Home > Other > The Unquiet Englishman > Page 61
The Unquiet Englishman Page 61

by Richard Greene


  25GTG, 10–11.

  26SOL, 116–24.

  27Letters, 23.

  28GG to MG, 4 November 1925.

  29GG to MG, 5 December 1925, BL.

  30See Wise and Hill 1: 89.

  31GG to MG, 17 December 1925, BL.

  32GG to MG, 25 February 1926, BL.

  33The full description of Roberts is found in the Bodley Head edition of SOL, 159–60.

  34Cecil Roberts, ‘Graham Greene’s Sort of Life’, Books and Bookmen (October 1971), 28–31.

  35SOL, 118.

  36GG to VG, 2 November 1925, HRC.

  37SOL, 118.

  38What follows relies heavily on Margaret Quinn’s apparently unpublished article about Trollope, of which there is a typescript in the Graham Greene Collection, BC. Her research is also described in ‘Notebook: Greene Then and Now’, The Tablet (29 September 1984), 9.

  39For GG’s account of his dealings with Trollope, see SOL, 118–22.

  40GG to VG, 16 November 1925, HRC.

  41SOL, 119.

  42Letters, 25.

  43GG to MG, 16 February 1926 and 19 February 1926, BL.

  44SOL, 121; GG to MG, 19 February 1926, BL.

  45GG to VG, 21 January 1926, HRC.

  46GG to VG, 16 and 21 March 1926, HRC; Margaret Quinn, unpublished article on Trollope, BC.

  47Baptismal Register 1926, St Barnabas Cathedral, Nottingham.

  48SOL, 121.

  49SOL, 122.

  6: Marriage

  1Letters, 25–7; SOL, 125–7.

  2SOL, 127.

  3GG to MG, 5 May 1926, 6 May 1926, 8 May 1926, 18 May 1926, BL.

  4Letters, 27.

  5SOL, 127.

  6Allain, 91.

  7GG to VG, 27 August 1926 and 21 September 1926, HRC.

  8GG to VG, 12 August 1926 and 31 January 1927, HRC.

  9Greene seems to have submitted a group of poems under pseudonyms, winning as ‘H. Graham’. The untitled poem appeared in Saturday Review (25 September 1926), 338. Greene refers to winning the competition in his letter to MG, 25 September 1926, BL.

  10GG to MG, 4 August 1926, BL.

  11GG to VG, 25 September 1927, HRC; GG to MG, 21 April 1927, BL.

  12Letters, 127–8.

  13Lord Teignmouth and Charles G. Harper, The Smugglers, 2 vols. (1923), 1: 42–5. See Letters, 63.

  14WOE, 11.

  15GG to MG, 18 November 1926, BL; information about the epilepsy scare is mainly drawn from SOL, 135–8.

  16Greene and Sherry misspell the name in different ways. He is correctly identified in E. H. Reynolds, ‘The Impact of Epilepsy on Graham Greene’, Epilepsia, 42 (2001), 1091–3.

  17GG to VG, 11 December 1925, HRC.

  18SOL, 137.

  19For further information, see ‘Father James Christie’, Oratory Parish Magazine (November 1929), 207–8, and ‘Obituary: The Revd H. J. Christie, Cong. Orat.’, The Tablet (28 September 1929), 26.

  20SOL, 137.

  21GG to MG, 13 February 1927, BL.

  22GG, Journal (19 July 1932), HRC.

  23GG to MG, 24 January 1927, BL; Williams, 250.

  24GG to MG, 29 March 1928, BL.

  25GG to VG, 6 April 1927, HRC.

  26GG to VG, 18? February 1926, 21 March 1926, 22 March 1926, HRC.

  27Morning Post (17 October 1927).

  28Sherry 1: 354–5.

  29GG to MG, 31 October 1927, BL.

  7: Rats in the Thatch

  1SOL, 128.

  2SOL, 125.

  3The Times (18 May 1951).

  4SOL, 129–30; Obituary, The Times (23 November 1979).

  5‘A Walk on the Sussex Downs’ (9 March 1928) and ‘Barrel-organing’ (27 December 1928) are reprinted in Reflections, 18–20 and 21–3.

  6‘The Province of the Film: Past Mistakes and Future Hopes’, The Times (9 April 1928).

  7‘A Film Technique: Rhythms of Space and Time’, The Times (12 June 1928).

  8See Pamela Hutchinson, ‘C’mon feel the noise: What happened when the talkies came to Britain?’, Guardian (21 September 2015).

  9‘Film Aesthetic: Its Distinction for Drama – The Province of the Screen’, The Times (19 March 1929); for Disney, see for example GG to MG, 4 May 1942, BL.

  10SOL, 138–40.

  11David Higham, Literary Gent (London: Jonathan Cape, 1978), 170.

  12Letters, 32.

  13GG to MG, 24 May 1929, BL.

  14SOL, 140.

  15Letters, 34–5.

  16SOL, 133

  17GG to Lints Smith, 7 October 1929, News International Record Office.

  18WOE, 14.

  19Journal, 11 June 1932, HRC.

  20GG to MG, 4 April 1929, BL.

  21GG to MG, 24 May 1929, BL.

  22WOE, 16.

  23GG to MG, 7 May 1930, 13 May 1930, 15 May 1930, BL.

  24Quoted in GG to MG, 13 May 1930, BL.

  25SOL, 140.

  26GG to MG, Tuesday [late July 1930], BL.

  27Review of The Name of Action, The Bookman, 73 (April 1931), 195.

  28Letters, 38–9.

  29Letters, 39.

  30Dates and word count are recorded on the manuscript of Rumour at Nightfall, HRC.

  31GG to MG, 28 April 1931, BL.

  32SOL, 146–7; WOE, 15–18; GG to MG, 2 October 1930, BL.

  33Rumour at Nightfall (New York: Doubleday Doran, 1932), 240.

  34Rumour at Nightfall, 214.

  35Evening News (20 November 1931). See WOE, 17–18.

  36WOE, 17; Wise and Hill 1: 17.

  37GG’s letters of instruction, which I have examined, are in the possession of FG.

  38Letters, 39.

  39Greene’s copy of Devotional Poets of the XVII Century, ed. and intro. Sir Henry Newbolt (London & Edinburgh: Thomas Nelson, n.d.) is in the collection at the HRC. In it he marks off his favourite poems from the period. The phrase from Herbert’s ‘The Church Porch’ is singled out on page 62.

  40Lord Rochester’s Monkey (London: The Bodley Head, 1974), 10. Note that this passage, though consistent with the positions taken in the book, was actually written as part of a preface at the time of publication.

  41Lord Rochester’s Monkey, 110.

  42GG to Christopher Hill, 15 October 1974, Balliol.

  43The circumstances of the book’s rejection are recounted in the preface to Lord Rochester’s Monkey, 9.

  44SOL, 145–6.

  45Edge.

  46Journal, 18 July 1932, HRC.

  47Letters, 182.

  48GG to MG, 25 May 1931, BL.

  49Information from Caroline Bourget.

  50SOL, 147–50.

  51Chipping Campden History Society: https://www.chippingcampdenhistory.org.uk/content/history/religious_life_in_campden_district/father_henry_bilsborrow (accessed 10 September 2019).

  52SOL, 148.

  53‘Death in the Cotswolds’ (24 February 1933), is reprinted in Reflections, 24–7. For further information on Seitz, see https://www.chippingcampdenhistory.org.uk/content/history/people-2/campden-characters/charles_francis_seitz_sykes_1858_-_1933 (accessed 10 September 2019).

  54WOE, 18–22; Nils Lie, ‘The Young Nordahl Grieg’, unpublished translation by Jens Folkman of a speech by Lie at a 1972 commemoration of Grieg, BC.

  55Information from Johanne Elster Hanson.

  56WOE, 22.

  8: The Devil Looks After His Own

  1Annotation on MS of Stamboul Train, HRC.

  2WOE, 22.

  3See, for example, Stephen Clissold, A Short History of Yugoslavia From Early Times to 1966 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1966), 181–4.

  4Anne Applebaum, Red Famine: Stalin’s War on Ukraine (New York: Doubleday, 2017), xxvi and 280.

  5David R. A. Pearce, ‘Stamboul Train: The Timetable for 1932’, 19–37, in Dangerous Edges of Graham Greene, eds Dermot Gilvray and Darren J. N. Middleton (New York: Continuum, 2011). I follow Pearce, 30, in placing the events of the story in the politically fraught April 1932.

  6WO
E, 23.

  7Letters, 398–9.

  8Tracey, 33.

  9Lewis, 139–47.

  10Letters, 86.

  11Letters, 98.

  12See, for example, Ninian Stewart, The Royal Navy and the Palestine Patrol (London: Frank Cass, 2002).

  13PG, 102.

  14Undated entry c. March 1941, ‘The Defenders’ (Blitz journal 1940–41), HRC.

  15MS of Stamboul Train, HRC.

  16Letters, 46.

  17Journal, 17 July 1932, HRC.

  18SOL, 131.

  19Journal, 23 July 1932, HRC.

  20Journal, 19 and 26 August 1932, HRC.

  21SOL, 153.

  22Journal, 1 September 1932, HRC.

  23Journal, 1 September 1932, HRC.

  24Philip Ziegler, Rupert Hart-Davis: Man of Letters (London: Chatto & Windus, 2004), 78–81; Journal, 7 October 1932, HRC.

  25Letters, 47; Journal, 20 October 1932, HRC.

  26Stamboul Train, 70.

  27Journal, 28 November 1932, HRC.

  28Letters, 48. BL has what appears to be a copy of the uncorrected first issue under the call number Cup. 410 f.742.

  29John St John, William Heinemann: A Century of Publishing 1890–1990 (London: William Heinemann, 1990), 295.

  30GG to MG, [? December 1932], BL.

  31Journal, 28 November 1932 – 4 January 1933, HRC.

  32GG to MG, 3 March 1933, BL. I am grateful to John Baxendale for information about Priestley’s reviewing.

  33GG to MG, 3 March 1933, BL.

  34Quoted in GG to MG, 13 April 1933, BL.

  35GG to MG, 21 February and 3 March 1933, BL; Journal, 14 February 1933, HRC.

  36Jeremy Lewis, Grub Street Irregular (London: Harper Press, 2008), 18.

  37See Wise and Hill 1: 79–190.

  38GG to MG, 21 February 1933, BL.

  39Bevis Hillier, ‘A Sort of Wife’, The Times Magazine (20 January 1996).

  40Journal, 15 March and 18 April 1933, HRC.

  41GG to MG, 5 May 1933, BL.

  42Journal, 25 April 1933, HRC.

  43Journal, 21–3 May 1933, HRC; Letters, 49–50.

  44Wise and Hill 1: 18.

  45Journal, 15 August and 7 October 1932, HRC.

  46See G. D. Turner, ‘Aid for Prisoners on Discharge’, Police Journal (1930), 11–19, and The Alternatives to Capital Punishment (London: National Council for the Abolition of the Death Penalty, 1940).

  47Journal, 4 January 1933, HRC.

  48It’s a Battlefield, 194.

  49The dates of writing are noted on the AMS of ‘It’s a Battlefield’, HRC.

  50Wise and Hill 1: 18.

  51Ford Madox Ford to GG, 4 December 1934, HRC; see Alan Judd, Ford Madox Ford (London: Collins 1990), 420.

  9: Minty Stepped on Board

  1See George Soloveytchik, The Financier: The Life of Ivar Kreuger (London: Peter Davies, 1933), 108–12, 141 and 151.

  2Review of The Financier: The Life of Ivar Kreugaer by George Soloveytchik, The Spectator (3 March 1993), 308.

  3WOE, 30.

  4GG to MG, 3 August 1933, 20 August 1933, 29 August 1933, BL; Letters, 51–2; ‘Two Capitals’, Reflections, 31–4.

  5This matter is referred to repeatedly in GG’s letters to MG at the BL.

  6WOE, 31–2.

  7KP to GG, 23 November 1982, Sutro Collection, Bod; Waugh (1980), 322.

  8L. P. Hartley, ‘The Conformer’, 85–102, in GG, ed., The Old School (London: Jonathan Cape, 1934), 87.

  9Letters, 50.

  10Walter Greenwood, ‘Langy Road’, 73–84, in GG, ed., The Old School, 76.

  11GG to MG, 12 November 1933, BL.

  12Letters, 52.

  13GG to MG, 12 November 1933, BL.

  14GG to MG, 29 December 1933, BL.

  15Oxford Diary, Oxford Mail (20 January 1934). The issue of the 24th makes no reference to the meeting, but does describe a ‘black-out’ across southern England owing to frost and fog. It is possible the meeting was cancelled.

  16Allain, 55.

  17GG to VG, 14 October 1926, HRC.

  18The Times (esp. 12 and 26 January 1934; 8, 12 and 20 February 1934).

  19Desmond Flower, ‘Denyse Clarouin’, unpublished memoir, GG Collection, BC.

  20‘Strike in Paris’, Spectator (16 February 1934). Letters, 56.

  21Letters, 58.

  22GG to MG, 9 July 1934, BL.

  23GG to MG, 14 April 1934, BL; WOE, 55; Letters, 301.

  24JWM, 35–6.

  25GG to MG, 14 April 1934, BL.

  26New York Times (16 May 1934).

  27Letters, 60–2.

  28For a full account of Greene’s visit to Tallinn and his friendship with Leslie, see Articles, 165–79. See also Greene’s letter to Thomson about Tallinn and the abortive film script in Letters, 403. I am grateful to Ian Thomson for his generous assistance.

  29WOE, 55–6.

  10: In Zigi’s Town

  1JWM, 37.

  2WOE, 37.

  3‘The International Commission of Enquiry in Liberia’ (Geneva: League of Nations Official Publications, 1930), 133–5.

  4‘The International Commission of Enquiry in Liberia’, 133–5; further information from Tarnue Johnson, A Critical Examination of Firestone’s Operations in Liberia: A Case Study Approach (Bloomington: AuthorHouse, 2010), esp. 23–8.

  5The Times (19 May 1934).

  6My comments here are indebted to an email exchange with Tim Butcher, 13 July 2016. I am grateful to Tim Butcher for his generous assistance.

  7ODNB.

  8Letters, 67.

  9WOE, 39.

  10ODNB.

  11Foreign Office memo, 7 December 1934, outline response to Sir John Harris, TNA, FO 371/18044. This archival source was first discovered by Butcher.

  12Letters, 65.

  13Barbara Greene, xii; Tracey, 47.

  14Letters, 64.

  15Barbara Greene, xii–xiii.

  16Lewis, 99–100, and 161–2.

  17See Butcher, 26.

  18See a series of letters between G. H. Thompson and GG, 13–23 December 1934, TNA, FO 371/18044.

  19GG to MG, undated, BL.

  20GG to MG, 14 January 1935, BL.

  21Butcher, 26.

  22Barbara Greene, 6.

  23Barbara Greene, vii.

  24JWM, 18.

  25JWM, 45–6.

  26JWM, 80–1, 122.

  27JWM, 41; Butcher, 73.

  28JWM, 119.

  29See Chinua Achebe, ‘An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness’, Massachusetts Review, 18. (1977). Reprinted in Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness, An Authoritative Text, Background and Sources Criticism, ed. Robert Kimbrough (3rd edn; London: W. W Norton and Co., 1988), 251–61.

  30JWM, 100–1.

  31Cable to Mr Yapp, 20 December 1934, TNA, FO 371/18044.

  32‘Journey Without Maps: Notes’ (journal), HRC.

  33JWM, 106.

  34‘Journey Without Maps: Notes’ (journal), HRC.

  35JWM, 196–207, 231; Butcher, 278, suspects that Greene was somewhat fooled.

  36Report on Greene’s remarks to the annual meeting of the Anti-Slavery Society on 18 June 1935: Anon., ‘Slavery and the League of Nations: Liberia’, Anti-Slavery Reporter and Aborigine’s Friend, Series V, 25:3 (October 1935), 99–100.

  37Ibid.

  38JWM, 174.

  39Barbara Greene, 115.

  40Butcher, 247–54.

  41Barbara Greene, 71.

  42Barbara Greene, 174.

  43‘Journey Without Maps: Notes’ (journal), HRC.

  44Barbara Greene, 176.

  45JWM, 213–14.

  46JWM, 214.

  11: Raven

  1GG to MG, 1 May 1935, BL.

  2GG to MG, undated, BL.

  3Despite extensive damage in the Blitz, the house survives, now divided into flats; it is grade-II listed and bears an English Heritage blue plaque commemorating Graham Greene’s time there: http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/blue-pl
aques/GrahamGreene. Interview with CB, 20 February 2014.

  4Bevis Hillier, ‘A Sort of Wife’, The Times Magazine (20 December 1996).

  5GG to MG, 29 May 1935, BL.

  6The Times (19 June 1935).

  7Wise and Hill 2: 19.

  8GG to MG, undated, BL.

  9Greene’s writings on film have been compiled in David Parkinson, ed., The Graham Greene Film Reader: Mornings in the Dark (Manchester: Carcanet Press, 1993).

  10WOE, 45.

  11GG to MG, 18 April 1935, BL.

  12GG to MG, undated, BL.

  13R. K. Narayan, My Days (1973; London: Picador, 2001), 110–11; Susan Ram and N. Ram, R. K. Narayan: The Early Years 1906–1945 (New Delhi: Viking, 1996), esp. 143–5; for a learned account of Narayan’s life and writing, see Ranga Rao, R. K. Narayan: The Novelist and his Art (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2017).

  14Letters, 68–70.

  15Information from Bruce Hunter.

  16David Higham to GG, 5 January 1953, Pollinger Files, HRC. Higham is quoting a letter he has received from Narayan.

  17GG to MR, 21 September 1964, BL.

  18GG to Marshall Best, 23 March 1974, Viking Press editorial files, New York.

  19Arthur Calder-Marshall, ‘The Works of Graham Greene’, Horizon, 5 (May 1940), 367–75.

  20JWM, 19.

  21GG to MG, [?] September 1935, BL.

  22WOE, 27–31.

  23GG to MG, 17 January 1936, BL.

  24Allain, 148.

  25Contract between Graham Greene and Paramount Productions, Inc., 12 May 1936, Pollinger Files, HRC.

  26Letters, 81.

  12: My Worst Film

  1Notebook 1936, HRC.

  2Letters, 71.

  3GG to MG, 29 August 1936, BL.

  4Allain, 132–3; for a contrary opinion, see Bergonzi, 28–34, who maintains that the idea of Greene’s cinematic method has been exaggerated.

  5Falk, 4–6.

  6Spectator (12 January 1940).

  7Reflections, 407–10.

  8Spectator (4 September 1936). David Parkinson, ed., The Graham Greene Film Reader: Mornings in the Dark (Manchester: Carcanet Press, 1993), 135.

  9See Drazin, 212–19 and passim.

  10Letters, 79.

  11WOE, 50.

  12WOE, 50.

  13GG to MG, 18 November 1936, BL.

  14Falk, 1.

  13: Shirley Temple

  1See Christopher Hawtree, Introduction, Christopher Hawtree, ed., Night and Day (London: Chatto & Windus, 1985), viii–xiv.

 

‹ Prev