Graham Greene Books in Order

A compact book of interviews and conversations that let Greene explain his work in his own words. He talks about writing habits, travel, faith, politics, and the line between serious novels and entertainments, with plenty of dry humor.

Postwar Vienna is split into zones and thick with black-market deals when writer Holly Martins arrives to meet his old friend Harry Lime. After a suspicious death, Martins starts asking questions, and loyalty quickly becomes dangerous.

A collection of Greene’s journalism on Catholic life and public affairs, written over many years. The pieces move between belief, politics, and everyday ethics, showing how he could argue, question, and observe without turning certainty into sermons.

In the Harz Mountains near the Iron Curtain, a quiet British man named Brown takes a holiday that doesn’t quite add up. When he slips into the Soviet zone on a strange pretext, he is arrested, and the story tightens into espionage and suspicion.

Greene kept a dream diary for years, and this book collects those entries with minimal explanation. Familiar people reappear in strange roles, cities shift shape, and anxiety turns funny. It’s a rare look at the private images that fed his imagination.

A lively selection of Greene’s letters to newspapers and editors, spanning decades of public debates. He argues about politics, literature, film, and the odd injustice that caught his eye, showing dry wit and stubborn clarity.

This single-volume memoir draws together key sections of Greene’s autobiographical writing. He covers childhood and Oxford, the leap into journalism and novels, and the travels and friendships behind the books, with an eye on how writing got done.

A brief, chilling story set in a future where religion has been pushed to the margins and the last Pope lives under watch. When officials arrive, the encounter becomes a quiet argument about faith, power, and what survives pressure.

A curated selection of Greene’s nonfiction from across his career, including travel writing, journalism, and pieces on books and politics. The tone shifts from amused observation to sharp critique, but the through-line is his eye for moral complication.

A comprehensive collection of Greene’s short fiction, spanning early thrillers, wartime tales, and later, stranger pieces. It’s a great way to see how quickly he sets a scene, and how often a story turns on one decisive moral slip.

A lonely schoolboy is taken in by a charming con man known as the Captain and his partner Liza, and grows up in a life built on stories and small scams. Years later, he tries to piece together what really happened to him, and why.

In occupied France, prisoners are told one in ten will die in reprisal. A lawyer tries to bargain his way out, and the deal leaves everyone living with impossible moral arithmetic. A tight, unsettling wartime tale about fear and self-preservation.

A single volume bringing together Greene’s major stage work, from The Living Room and The Potting Shed to The Complaisant Lover and later plays. It’s the best way to see how his themes of faith, secrecy, and desire work in dialogue.

An anthology of Victorian shockers and crime tales selected by Graham Greene and Hugh Greene. Packed with fog, melodrama, and ingenious swindles, the collection is a tour of the stories that fed later popular thrillers and mystery writing.

Greene recounts his unusual friendship with Omar Torrijos, Panama’s strongman leader, and the years he spent visiting the country. Part travel book, part political diary, it shows him listening, arguing, and trying to understand power up close.

A book-length conversation that lets Greene look back on his life through a series of interviews. He talks about travel, politics, faith, film work, and the habits that kept him writing, with answers that are candid, wry, and sometimes evasive.

A mild Spanish priest, Father Quixote, sets off on the road with Sancho, a Communist ex-mayor, in a battered car. Their journey becomes a running conversation about faith, politics, and friendship, with trouble never far behind.

A short, furious piece of reportage about corruption and organized crime in Nice, written after Greene became entangled in a local scandal. It reads like an investigative brief about how power protects itself, and it famously ended up in court.

A businessman on the run reaches the Mexican border hoping to disappear, but fear and pride keep steering him into danger. In this classic Greene story, the crossing becomes a trap where criminal worlds and conscience meet.

A compact drama about Benjamin Jowett, the influential Master of Balliol College, Oxford. Greene captures the mix of ambition, eccentricity, and moral authority around him, using sharp dialogue to bring academic politics and personality to life.

Greene’s second volume of memoir returns to the making of his best-known novels, and to the travel, politics, and private troubles behind them. He writes about research trips, fame, film work, and the ways a writer looks for escape and returns anyway.

Alfred Jones falls in love with a woman whose father, the wealthy Dr Fischer, throws grotesque parties that buy humiliation with prizes. Set in Geneva, the book is a dark satire about money, cruelty, and how far people will bend for comfort.

Middle-aged intelligence officer Maurice Castle leaks secrets for personal reasons, not ideology, and the decision quietly rearranges his life. Greene strips spy work of glamour, focusing on paperwork, suspicion, and the slow burn of betrayal.

Postwar Vienna is split into zones and thick with black-market deals when writer Holly Martins arrives to meet his old friend Harry Lime. After a suspicious death, Martins starts asking questions, and loyalty quickly becomes dangerous.

In this short essay, Greene reflects on what pushes him to write and what he hopes fiction can do. It’s part craft talk, part self-examination, and a useful glimpse of the doubts and discipline behind his storytelling.

Greene revives the gentleman thief A. J. Raffles in an Edwardian comedy that begins with his surprise return from the Boer War. With Bunny at his side, Raffles plots a daring robbery driven by money, revenge, and the social scandals of the day.

A tie-in collection of Greene stories chosen for television adaptation, moving from London streets to foreign outposts. The plots are compact and cinematic, built around betrayals, sudden reversals, and the quiet dread that suits the screen.

Greene’s offbeat biography of John Wilmot, the Earl of Rochester, follows the poet’s short, scandalous life at the Restoration court. With dry humor and sympathy, he sketches a man who chased pleasure, provoked power, and wrote with startling candor.

A sampler that brings together key excerpts from Greene’s novels, stories, and nonfiction. It offers an easy way into his range, showing suspense writing alongside religious and political work, and giving new readers a sense of his voice.

In a provincial Argentine city, a botched kidnapping meant for a British honorary consul tangles a doctor named Plarr in old loyalties and new violence. Greene builds suspense from divided politics, personal betrayal, and the cost of choosing sides.

A substantial selection of Greene’s short fiction, from early tales of crime and fear to later, stranger pieces. Across continents and decades, his stories keep returning to the moment a person realizes the line has already been crossed.

A selection of Greene’s film reviews from the 1930s, showing him as a lively, sometimes combative critic. He writes about movies, stars, and the craft of storytelling on screen, with the same eye for mood and moral pressure found in his fiction.

Three Greene stories in one volume: This Gun for Hire, The Third Man, and Our Man in Havana. The settings and tones shift, but each tale turns on the same mix of tight plotting, sudden danger, and characters making excuses for what they do.

Greene’s first volume of autobiography covers his Hertfordshire childhood, school and Oxford years, and the early struggle to become a novelist. He writes frankly about depression, conversion, and the working life of a young journalist.

Retired bank manager Henry Pulling expects a quiet life until his outrageous Aunt Augusta pulls him onto the road. Their travels leap from London to far-off ports, mixing con men, old lovers, and improvised reinvention with warm, sly humor.

A wide-ranging gathering of Greene’s nonfiction, from literary essays and reviews to pieces on travel and politics. It’s a chance to see his plainspoken style off the page, sizing up writers and places with dry precision.

A late collection of sharp, often funny short stories about marriage, desire, and awkward bargains. Greene’s characters drift through hotels, parties, and chance encounters, where a polite question can carry a sting and compassion is never simple.

In Duvalier’s Haiti, hotel owner Brown hosts travelers who wear masks of charm, faith, or idealism. As the secret police tighten their grip, jokes stop being safe, loyalties shift, and even small choices can read as political defiance.

In this stage drama, a father’s fierce belief centers on a statue he is carving, and the work becomes a battleground with his skeptical son. The play turns a family argument into questions about grace, pride, and the need to control.

William Wilditch returns to his childhood house and becomes obsessed with a memory of going underground with another boy. As he tries to retrace that route, the boundary between real past and invented story starts to blur in unsettling ways.

Mary Rhodes begins an affair with Clive Root, a bookseller who is also a friend of her husband. Greene treats the triangle as a comedy of manners, where civilized talk and practical arrangements mask jealousy, hurt, and real risk.

Two African notebooks show Greene scouting settings before writing his fiction. One follows a wartime journey tied to Sierra Leone, the other a later trip to the Congo. The entries capture research in motion, and characters forming on the page.

A famous architect arrives anonymously at a leper colony deep in the Congo, hoping to escape fame, desire, and himself. Work offers a kind of calm, but misunderstandings and outside pressures turn his retreat into a tense moral trial.

In Havana, mild-mannered vacuum salesman Jim Wormold is recruited as a spy and needs quick results to keep his paychecks coming. He invents agents and reports, but the fake network starts drawing real attention, and real violence, from both sides.

An estranged son returns as his father lies dying, determined to learn what happened in the family’s potting shed when he was fourteen. Memory, faith, and denial tangle as the household tries to keep its long-held secret buried.

In early 1950s Saigon, British journalist Thomas Fowler tries to report the war without taking sides. Then the idealistic American Alden Pyle arrives with his own plan for Vietnam, and both politics and a shared love begin to turn deadly.

At London Airport, a little steamroller clears snow from the runway while bigger machines laugh at him. When smugglers try to move diamonds under cover of bad weather, the small roller becomes the one thing that can stop them.

In postwar London, a gang of boys targets an elderly man’s house for “a job.” What begins as mischief turns into a methodical demolition, and Greene shows how destruction can feel like power when nothing else does.

On a honeymoon in Monte Carlo, a modest clerk suddenly wins big at the casino. The money should solve everything, but the tables become a trap, and his new wife watches love compete with luck, pride, and the fear of losing it all.

Twenty-one stories that capture Greene’s range, from crime and wartime tension to quieter moral puzzles. The settings hop from London to overseas outposts, and the endings often hinge on a single, fateful decision.

Rose returns to her strictly Catholic family home with a lover she cannot easily hide. In a tense household watched over by two aunts and a disabled priest, desire and doctrine collide, and private choices become a public crisis.

A three-in-one volume of Greene thrillers: Brighton Rock, The Confidential Agent, and The Ministry of Fear. Together they show his talent for tight suspense, uneasy humor, and characters trapped between what they want and what they can live with.

Kind grocer Mr Potter is nearly ruined when a flashy new emporium opens nearby. An old horse bus and its plucky pony help him make deliveries, and when thieves strike, the little vehicle’s dash and courage win Mr Potter his customers back.

A mix of essays, reviews, and personal pieces that show Greene as a reader and critic. He writes about childhood, the craft of novels, and the writers who shaped him, moving easily from memoir to sharp literary judgment.

After an affair ends without explanation, writer Maurice Bendrix can’t stop circling the married woman he loved. He hires a detective and follows clues into her private life, turning jealousy into a fight with faith, fate, and the stories people tell themselves.

Sam Trolley and Toby the pony pull the little fire engine through the streets of Little Snoreing. When a shiny new engine arrives and pushes them aside, the old team gets one last chance to save the day, and prove they still belong.

A late-career story collection where ordinary situations tilt into obsession and the uncanny. These tales follow lonely men, travelers, and uneasy families as small choices open into memory, fear, and moral unease.

Postwar Vienna is split into zones and thick with black-market deals when writer Holly Martins arrives to meet his old friend Harry Lime. After a suspicious death, Martins starts asking questions, and loyalty quickly becomes dangerous.

In a humid West African colony during World War II, police officer Henry Scobie tries to protect the people who depend on him, including his unhappy wife. Compassion turns into compromise, and every choice tightens the net of guilt around him.

Nineteen short stories that range from quiet moral tests to sudden violence and dark jokes. Moving between England and far-flung outposts, Greene builds tension fast, then leaves you with the aftertaste of doubt.

In the village of Little Snoreing, a small train grows tired of the same old route and sets off to see the world. The journey brings castles, big-city noise, and a few scares, before the little engine learns what bravery and home really mean.

During the Blitz, guilt-ridden Arthur Rowe wins a cake at a charity fête, and that small prize drops him into espionage. Pursued across London, he can’t tell who is hunting him, who is helping, or which parts of his own past he can trust.

A brisk, opinionated tour through British theatre, from early religious drama to Shakespeare and later playwrights. Greene writes as a sharp-eyed reader, explaining what each era tried to do on stage and where it fell short.

In 1930s Tabasco, a flawed priest is one of the last clergy left, and the state wants him gone. Drinking, fear, and responsibility pull him in opposite directions as he tries to keep serving people while staying alive.

Commissioned to report on Mexico’s anti-clerical crackdown, Greene travels through towns where churches are closed and priests are hunted. Part travel diary, part moral argument, the book records a country’s wounds and the questions of faith they left behind.

A refugee intellectual known only as D arrives in England on a secret mission to buy coal for his side in a civil war. Betrayal follows him from the dock, and with a daring young woman beside him, he’s chased across a country that suddenly feels hostile.

In 1930s Brighton, teenage gang leader Pinkie Brown tries to cover up a murder and keep control of his small-time empire. A naive waitress, Rose, knows too much, and a stubborn amateur sleuth refuses to let the death be written off as an accident.

Greene’s travel classic recounts his 1935 trek through Liberia, a long walk into country that was barely mapped to outsiders. He writes about porters and guides, illness and boredom, and the uneasy mix of curiosity and dread that drove him forward.

Hired killer Raven is paid in counterfeit bills after a high-profile assassination, and he turns from tool to threat. Hunted by police and his employers, he tracks the man who set him up and forms an uneasy bond with a young woman caught in the fallout.

Deep in the West African interior, salesman Mr Lever treks upriver for a simple signature that could save his job. Heat, illness, and isolation wear him down, and a moment of panic pushes him toward a choice he cannot easily undo.

This rare, early experiment follows a young man on a doomed flight, moving through memory, fear, and sudden flashes of humor as the plane goes down. A teddy bear falling from the sky becomes the story’s strange, haunting image.

Broke and charming, Anthony Farrant drifts into Stockholm and talks his way into work for a shady financier. His capable twin sister Kate tries to rescue him and secure a place for herself, even as money, loyalty, and conscience start to come apart.

A London bus driver faces execution, and Greene follows the shockwaves through everyone connected to the case, family members, officials, activists, and opportunists. The book is less about the crime than about how a society decides what “justice” means.

On the luxury train from Ostend to Istanbul, a Jewish businessman, a sick dancer, a hunted revolutionary, a journalist, and a thief share narrow corridors and private secrets. Border stops and political pressure force their separate lives into collision.

Near the end of Spain’s First Carlist War, journalist Francis Chase travels with government troops chasing the last rebel commander. Rumors, loyalties, and fear thicken the air, and Chase’s friendship with another outsider is pushed to a breaking point.

Wealthy, restless Oliver Chant is pulled into revolutionary politics in Trier, Germany, after an exiled leader promises him a part in a dramatic uprising. As plans unravel, Chant has to face the gap between heroic ideas and real-world action.

A young smuggler, Francis Andrews, betrays his own crew and runs for his life along the English coast. Hiding in a remote cottage, he falls in with a woman living on the edge of respectability, while guilt and revenge close in.

Greene’s youthful debut is a slim book of poems published while he was still at Oxford. The pieces show an early ear for rhythm and image, and hints of the themes he’d return to, loneliness, faith, and the urge to slip away.