Henry Graham Greene (2 October 1904 – 3 April 1991) was an English writer and journalist regarded by many as one of the leading novelists of the 20th century.
Combining literary acclaim with widespread popularity, Greene acquired a reputation early in his lifetime as a major writer, both of serious Catholic novels, and of thrillers (or "entertainments" as he termed them). He was shortlisted for the Nobel Prize in Literature several times. Later in life he called himself a "Catholic agnostic".
He died in 1991, aged 86, of leukemia, V. S. Pritchett called him "the most ingenious, inventive and exciting of our novelists, rich in exactly etched and moving portraits of real human beings and who understands the tragic and comic ironies of love, loyalty and belief."
Early years (1904–1922)
left|thumb|Greene was born in [[Berkhamsted School where his father taught.]]
thumb|upright|Graham Greene's birthplace blue plaque
Henry Graham Greene was born in 1904 in St John's House, a boarding house of Berkhamsted School, Hertfordshire, where his father was house master. He was the fourth of six children; his younger brother, Hugh, became Director-General of the BBC,
His parents, Charles Henry Greene and Marion Raymond Greene, were first cousins, both members of a large, influential family that included the owners of Greene King Brewery, bankers, and statesmen; his grandmother Jane Wilson was first cousin to Robert Louis Stevenson. he was sent for psychoanalysis for six months in London, afterwards returning to school as a day student. School friends included the journalist Claud Cockburn and the historian Peter Quennell.
Greene contributed several stories to the school magazine, one of which was published by a London evening newspaper Of Greene's time at Oxford, his contemporary Evelyn Waugh noted that: "Graham Greene looked down on us (and perhaps all undergraduates) as childish and ostentatious. He certainly shared in none of our revelry." after its favourable reception he left his job at The Times to work full-time as a novelist. His first true success was Stamboul Train (1932) which was taken on by the Book Society and adapted as the film Orient Express, in 1934.
Although Greene objected to being described as a Roman Catholic novelist, rather than as a novelist who happened to be Catholic,