WRITER

Graham Greene

1904 - 1991

Photo of Graham Greene

Icon of person Graham Greene

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. Read more on Wikipedia

Since 2007, the English Wikipedia page of Graham Greene has received more than 4,407,799 page views. His biography is available in 81 different languages on Wikipedia (up from 78 in 2019). Graham Greene is the 457th most popular writer (down from 325th in 2019), the 330th most popular biography from United Kingdom (down from 259th in 2019) and the 34th most popular British Writer.

Graham Greene is most famous for his novels, The End of the Affair and The Quiet American.

Memorability Metrics

  • 4.4M

    Page Views (PV)

  • 67.52

    Historical Popularity Index (HPI)

  • 81

    Languages Editions (L)

  • 5.55

    Effective Languages (L*)

  • 5.55

    Coefficient of Variation (CV)

Notable Works

The power and the glory
This gun for hire
Twenty-one stories
Brighton rock
Biography & Autobiography
When a father reveals his haunting past, a daughter takes an incredible journey of self-discovery . . . Emmy® award–winning journalist, TV host, and New York Times bestselling author Rita Cosby has always asked the tough questions in her interviews with the world’s top newsmakers. Now, in a compelling and powerful memoir, she reveals how she uncovered an amazing personal story of heroism and courage, the untold secrets of a man she has known all her life: her father. Years after her mother’s tragic death, Rita finally nerved herself to sort through her mother’s stored belongings, never dreaming what a dramatic story was waiting for her. Opening a battered tan suitcase, she discovered it belonged to her father—the enigmatic man who had divorced her mother and left when Rita was still a teenager. Rita knew little of her father’s past: just that he had left Poland after World War II, and that his many scars, visible and not, bore mute witness to some past tragedy. He had always refused to answer questions. Now, however, she held in her hand stark mementos from the youth of the man she knew only as Richard Cosby, proud American: a worn Polish Resistance armband; rusted tags bearing a prisoner number and the words Stalag IVB; and an identity card for an ex-POW bearing the name Ryszard Kossobudzki. Gazing at these profoundly telling relics, the well-known journalist realized that her father’s story was one she could not allow him to keep secret any longer. When she finally did persuade him to break his silence, she heard of a harrowing past that filled her with immense pride . . . and chilled her to the bone. At the age of thirteen, barely even adolescent, her father had seen his hometown decimated by bombs. By the time he was fifteen, he was covertly distributing anti-Nazi propaganda a few blocks from the Warsaw Ghetto. Before the Warsaw Uprising, he lied about his age to join the Resistance and actively fight the enemy to the last bullet. After being nearly fatally wounded, he was taken into captivity and sent to a German POW camp near Dresden, finally escaping in a daring plan and ultimately rescued by American forces. All this before he had left his teens. This is Richard Cosby’s story, but it is also Rita’s. It is the story of a daughter coming to understand a father whose past was too painful to share with those he loved the most, too terrible to share with a child . . . but one that he eventually revealed to the journalist. In turn, Rita convinced her father to join her in a dramatic return to his battered homeland for the first time in sixty-five years. As Rita drew these stories from her father and uncovered secrets and emotions long kept hidden, father and daughter forged a new and precious bond, deeper than either could have ever imagined.
The Human Factor
Journey without maps

Among WRITERS

Among writers, Graham Greene ranks 457 out of 7,302Before him are Salvatore Quasimodo, Boris Vian, Wolfram von Eschenbach, Jack Kerouac, Jacques Hébert, and Héloïse. After him are Vasily Grossman, Lesya Ukrainka, Yevgeny Zamyatin, Léopold Sédar Senghor, Tibullus, and Marguerite de Navarre.

Most Popular Writers in Wikipedia

Go to all Rankings

Contemporaries

Among people born in 1904, Graham Greene ranks 16Before him are B. F. Skinner, Ève Curie, Johnny Weissmuller, George Gamow, Alexei Kosygin, and Lal Bahadur Shastri. After him are Kurt Georg Kiesinger, Karl Brandt, René Lacoste, Pavel Cherenkov, Hans Albert Einstein, and Harry Martinson. Among people deceased in 1991, Graham Greene ranks 17Before him are Jiang Qing, Klaus Barbie, John Bardeen, Miles Davis, Gustáv Husák, and Soichiro Honda. After him are Lazar Kaganovich, Frank Capra, Michael Landon, Marcel Lefebvre, Rajiv Gandhi, and Oona O'Neill.

Others Born in 1904

Go to all Rankings

Others Deceased in 1991

Go to all Rankings

In United Kingdom

Among people born in United Kingdom, Graham Greene ranks 330 out of 8,785Before him are James V of Scotland (1512), Bonnie Tyler (1951), Alexander Selkirk (1676), Alfred North Whitehead (1861), Robbie Coltrane (1950), and Halford Mackinder (1861). After him are Morrissey (1959), William Hogarth (1697), John Galsworthy (1867), William Petty (1623), Victoria Eugenie of Battenberg (1887), and Norman Haworth (1883).

Among WRITERS In United Kingdom

Among writers born in United Kingdom, Graham Greene ranks 34Before him are C. S. Lewis (1898), William Wordsworth (1770), Ken Follett (1949), Ian Fleming (1908), Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792), and John Keats (1795). After him are John Galsworthy (1867), Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828), G. K. Chesterton (1874), Christopher Marlowe (1564), Thomas Paine (1737), and Philip Larkin (1922).