Adamson: Review Graham Greene Studies Volume 1 178 regular basis for the rest of his life, encourag- REVIEW ing his family, friends and lovers to do likewise with the letters, manuscripts and inscribed Judith Adamson editions he had at one time or another sent them. Papers were sold to university archives Jon Wise and Mike Hill, The Works of and dealers, sometimes with embarrassing Graham Greene, Volume 2: A Guide To results. In May 1964 the Daily Mail mocked The Graham Greene Archives. London: Greene when the manuscript of Carving a Bloomsbury, 2015. Statue was auctioned off by Sotheby’s four ISBN: 978-1-4725-2819-3, 357 pages. months before the play was staged. Greene apologized to his agent and subsequently sold Jon Wise and Mike Hill are too modest other manuscripts prior to publication. when they say their book “is not a biogra- Soon after he appointed Alan Redway as phy nor is it a literary criticism” of Graham his bibliographer in 1949, Greene learned Greene’s work. A literary criticism, maybe that Neil Brennan had independently taken not, but it is certainly a biographical bibli- up the same work. He told Redway that ography with sometime critical insights—a “bibliography has always had a certain fas- comprehensive guide to nearly sixty reposi- cination for me;” he introduced the two tories of Greene’s papers in Canada, Ireland, men and helped them itemize differences the United Kingdom, and the United States. between his various editions, bindings and It includes an engaging synopsis of most textual changes, reminding them not to of their contents; this means that as well forget the blurbs he had written for A Burnt- as directing readers to the location of his Out Case and Travels With My Aunt, among papers, their book reveals a great deal about other books. A stickler for detail, he argued Greene’s life and work. It is elegantly writ- that these seemingly insignificant pieces ten, easily accessible to general readers and should be listed as part of his work. In those invaluable to literary researchers. For years days scholars shared bibliographies they had we have marveled at Greene’s productivity; compiled themselves, and before Redway this chronicle adds to the more commonly and Brennan could finish, Roland Wobbe known list of his archived journals, diaries, published Graham Greene: Bibliography notes, correspondence and the innumera- and Guide To Research in 1979, and in 1981 ble drafts and manuscripts of his published A.F. Cassis followed with Graham Greene: work, many fragments and letters along with An Annotated Bibliography of Criticism. By abandoned, unpublished or unfinished sto- then Greene’s bibliographic interest must ries, poems, plays, film scripts, and novels. have waned: when John Bray, a serious col- In an undated typescript at the University lector of his work, later asked him to send of Georgetown, the compulsively self-crit- Wobbe a get-well message, Greene declined. ical Greene admits to being “an obsessive Redway died in 1983 and Brennan in 2006, writer . I cannot support idleness (even their work unpublished. Quoting Greene, these words which I write now are an Wise and Hill’s epigraph reads: “What a life escape—better than writing nothing).” a bibliographer’s must be!” Greene began selling off his manuscripts At Columbia University they have found and papers in the early 1960s and did so on a a cache of one hundred letters, postcards Published by Nighthawks Open Institutional Repository, 2017 1 Graham Greene Studies, Vol. 1 [2017], Art. 23 179 Review and telegrams between Greene and Mercia his Wee Willie Winkie review in Night and Ryhiner Schwob Tinker Harrison (she Day; his Mexican diary forms the basis of eventually married Rex Harrison) dating The Lawless Roads. On the first page of his from 1954 to 1990. The letters suggest “an November 1957 Havana Journal he said he intense passion” not discussed by Norman was “running from myself, and my chaos Sherry or Michael Shelden. The two met in and my loss.” If Batista’s Havana offered the Far East and were together in Bangkok, louche charms it also gave him the backdrop Penang, and Singapore. In 1954 Greene for Our Man In Havana. His travel reports wrote that he longed to see her again and paid his way for the research that informed that the only two people he loved were “you many of his novels. From his Vietnam trips and Catherine.” In the ‘60s he arranged came The Quiet American. A journey on the for her to stay in his villa at Anacapri and Orient Express in 1968 served him well in offered advice on writing about love after Travels With My Aunt. Visits to Argentina reading a novel she had written: “the colder and Paraguay provided background detail and the more detached your writing is the for The Honorary Consul. Two Panama more warmth it can convey to a reader.” diaries (Greene took six trips to Panama) Wise and Hill’s other discoveries are include notes for a novel he never com- many: probably the only original text of pleted, for Getting to Know The General, Stamboul Train, a 73,000-word manuscript and his story “On The Way Back.” of the 1924 novel, Prologue To Pilgrimage Then there are the letters. Perhaps (usually called Anthony Sant) about a black most interesting among them are those boy born to white parents, another unpub- to Catherine Walston (over 1200 at lished novel of 82,000 words from 1925–6 Georgetown University), to Yvonne Cloetta called The Episode, and a novel of 18,000 (these chronicle Greene’s travels as well as words titled Lucius, which seems to date his love for her), to Leopold Duran (which probably from the 1950s. They found a seven include discussion about Monsignor page fragment of another abandoned novel Quixote), to Gloria Emerson (journalist and called Fanatic Arabia, which they claim author of the novel Loving Graham Greene), was written in 1927–28; a twenty-seven to John and Gillian Sutro (close friends for page unpublished piece called A Man of 40 years), and to Vivienne Dayrell-Browning Extremes, which appears to feed into The before she and Greene were married. Wise Comedians; eight pages of a melodrama in and Hill say that with her, Greene “adopted three acts called The Clever Twist, which the conventional gender role of that time, they say was clearly intended to be a signif- that of the strong male caring for the del- icant piece of writing, another untitled piece icate and emotionally fragile female who of eleven pages that may have been intended needed protecting” and that they cannot tell as a novel; and many abandoned stories. from these letters “if this romantic yet chaste Of equal interest are the diaries and relationship was what the deeply sexually journals from Greene’s travels, which charged Greene really wanted or if he was are housed at Georgetown University. As adopting a role simply designed to please a Wise and Hill say, travel was an escape for person he genuinely loved.” Here Wise and Greene. In 1938 he went to Mexico, some Hill’s sensitive editing begins to explain that claim, to avoid attending the libel trial over doomed marriage. https://digitalcommons.northgeorgia.edu/ggs/vol1/iss1/23 2 Adamson: Review Graham Greene Studies Volume 1 180 Given the mass of information they have Michie from Heinemann. Among Michie’s condensed, it is not surprising that their desires was the freedom to take on whatever comments sometimes mislead. Greene books he liked. When he asked if The Bodley was on the Board of The Bodley Head from Head would publish The Tropic of Cancer, June 1957 until 1968 when he stepped Greene advised Reinhardt not “to discour- down to establish beyond question that he age [him] at this point and I personally was domiciled in France, and his brother, would be all for publishing Henry Miller . Hugh, soon replaced him. He, nonetheless, The courageous thing for us to do would be remained active in the firm’s affairs and his to publish in one volume both ‘Tropics’.” If suggestions were almost always taken up. you add this publishing information to what However, in September 1962 Reinhardt did Wise and Hill quote of Greene’s 12 May not publish Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer 1960 letter to Reinhardt, it becomes clear and Tropic of Capricorn when Greene that while Greene was in favor of publishing thought he should. Wise and Hill say the Miller’s books, the possibility was raised, or reasons are “unfortunately . not known.” temporarily not denied, only to encourage But they are. Michie to come to The Bodley Head, which Reinhardt and Greene had to intervene he did and where for years he was a highly many times between September 1957 when valued member of staff. they first contacted Charlie Chaplin about However, Wise and Hill’s editing is almost his autobiography and 1964 when it was invariably thorough and helpful. Their book finally published. Getting Chaplin to finish is an invaluable guide to the various Greene his manuscript was a very delicate task. archives and it often provides startling Early on Greene proposed shortening it by insights. It should be used in conjunction about 15,000 words, cuts Chaplin agreed with its companion volume The Works of to, and Greene and Reinhardt made many Graham Greene: A Reader’s Bibliography other suggestions as time passed. Part way And Guide (Bloomsbury, 2012), which was through these often difficult Chaplin years, so recently published that one is in awe of Reinhardt urgently needed a new editorial Wise and Hill’s energy.