The Power and the Glory [Viking Critical Library]

Born in 1904, Graham Greene was the son of a headmaster and the fourth of six children. Preferring to stay home and read rather than endure the teasing at school that was a by-product of his father's occupation, Greene attempted suicide several times and eventually dropped out of school at the age of 15. His parents sent him to an analyst in show more London who recommended he try writing as therapy. He completed his first novel by the time he graduated from college in 1925. Greene wrote both entertainments and serious novels. Catholicism was a recurring theme in his work, notable examples being The Power and the Glory (1940) and The End of the Affair (1951). Popular suspense novels include: The Heart of the Matter, Our Man in Havana and The Quiet American. Greene was also a world traveler and he used his experiences as the basis for many books. One popular example, Journey Without Maps (1936), was based on a trip through the jungles of Liberia. Greene also wrote and adapted screenplays, including that of the 1949 film, The Third Man, which starred Orson Welles. He died in Vevey, Switzerland in 1991. (Bowker Author Biography) show less

Chicago native Richard Warrington Baldwin Lewis, the son of Leicester and Beatrix (Baldwin) Lewis, was born on November 1, 1917. Lewis was educated in Switzerland, at Phillips Exeter Academy, at Harvard University, at the University of Chicago, where he received his M.A. in 1941. Lewis spent World War II engaged primarily in intelligence work for show more the British. Following the war, he began a long academic teaching career, focused mainly on American literature and social studies, at Bennington College and Princeton, Rutgers, and Yale universities. Lewis has created such critical and biographical books on authors and 19th-century United States history as The American Adam (1955), Edith Wharton (a 1975 biography that won the Pulitzer Prize, Bancroft, and Critics Circle awards), and The Jameses: A Family Narrative, about author Henry James and his family. (Bowker Author Biography) R. W. B. Lewis, professor of English & American studies at Yale University, is the author of "Edith Wharton: A Biography", which won the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award, & the Bancroft Prize. His other books include "The City of Florence", "The Jameses", & "American Characters". He most recently was given the award for lifetime achievement as a biographer by he American Academy of Arts & Letters. He lives in Bethany, Connecticut. (Bowker Author Biography) show less