Henry Green

Henry Green was the "nom de plume" of Henry Vincent Yorke [http://www.time.com/time/2005/100books/0,24459,loving_living_party_going,00.html Loving - ALL-TIME 100 Novels - TIME ] ] (29 October, 1905 - 13 December, 1973), an English author best remembered for the novel "Loving", which was featured by "Time" in its "TIME 100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005" list. [ [http://www.time.com/time/2005/100books/the_complete_list.html The Complete List | TIME Magazine - ALL-TIME 100 Novels ] ]

Biography

Green was born near Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire, into an educated family with successful business interests. His father was a wealthy landowner and industrialist in Birmingham, his mother daughter of the second Baron Leconfield. Green grew up in Gloucestershire and attended Eton College, where he wrote most of his first novel, "Blindness". He then went to Oxford University, which he left in 1926 without taking a degree, as he did not sit for his examination. [ [http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,800954,00.html?internalid=atb100 Molten Treasure - TIME ] ] Green was also a schoolmate of Anthony Powell and Evelyn Waugh. [ [http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1571/is_33_17/ai_78127731 Romancing: The Life and Work of Henry Green - Review | Insight on the News | Find Articles at BNET.com ] ]

After leaving school, he came back to Birmingham to engage in his family business. He started by working with the ordinary workers on the factory floor of his family's factory which produced beer-bottling machines, and later became the managing director there. During this time he gained the experience to write "Living", his second novel, which was written during 1927-1928. [ [http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,1576250,00.html Sebastian Faulks on Henry Green | Review | guardian.co.uk Books ] ] During World War II, he served as a fireman at Auxiliary Fire Service. [http://www.newcriterion.com/archive/11/mar93/green.htm "Reading Henry Green,"] by Brooke Allen, from "The New Criterion"] ] Green was married to Dig, who came from Adelaide, and had a son.

In 1940, Green published "Pack My Bag", which he regarded as a nearly-accurate autobiography.http://www.theparisreview.org/media/GREEN.pdf] In his later years, Green became increasingly focused on studies of the Ottoman Empire. Green's novels are often described as being, with those of Virginia Woolf, among the most important works of English modernist literature. ["Romancing: The Life and Work of Henry Green" by Jeremy Treglown ] Green stopped his writing career in 1952, after releasing nine novels and a memoir. In 1993, "Surviving", a collection of previously unpublished works, was released, edited by his grandson Matthew Yorke and published by Viking Press.

Bibliography

* "Blindness" (1926)
* "Living" (1929)
* "Party Going" (1939)
* "Pack My Bag" (1940)
* "Caught" (1943)
* "Loving" (1945)
* "Back" (1946)
* "Concluding" (1948)
* "Nothing" (1950)
* "Doting" (1952)
* "Surviving: The Uncollected Writings of Henry Green" (1992)

References

* [http://tls.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,25338-1970123,00.html An appreciation by James Wood, from "The Times Literary Supplement"]

External links

* [http://www.centerforbookculture.org/review/RCF_extracts/00_3_green1.html A review by Thomas C Foster]
* [http://www.theparisreview.org/viewinterview.php/prmMID/4800 The Paris Review Interview]
* [http://www.joeyrubin.com/greenthesis.htm "Traveling With Class: Language and Politics in the Novels of Henry Green"]