Henry Green
Encyclopedia
Henry Green was the nom de plume
of Henry Vincent Yorke (29 October 1905 – 13 December 1973), an English author best remembered for the novel Loving
, which was featured by Time
in its list of the 100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005.
, Gloucestershire, into an educated family with successful business interests. His father Vincent Wodehouse Yorke- the son of John Reginald Yorke
and Sophia Matilda de Tuyll
de Serooskerken- was a wealthy landowner and industrialist in Birmingham
. His mother, Hon. Maud Evelyn Wyndham, was daughter of the second Baron Leconfield
. Green grew up in Gloucestershire and attended Eton College
, where he became friends with fellow pupil Anthony Powell
and wrote most of his first novel, Blindness. He went on to study at Oxford University and there began a friendship and literary rivalry with Evelyn Waugh
.
Green left Oxford in 1926 without taking a degree and returned 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 and 1928. In 1929 he married his second cousin (they were both great-grandchildren of the 1st Baron Leconfield
), the Hon. Adelaide Biddulph, also known as 'Dig'. Their son Sebastian was born in 1934. In 1940, Green published Pack My Bag, which he regarded as a nearly-accurate autobiography. During World War II he served as a fireman in the Auxiliary Fire Service
and these wartime experiences are echoed in his novel Caught; they were also a strong influence on his subsequent novel, Back
. Politically, Green was a rather traditional Tory
his entire life.
Green's novels are often described as being, along with those of Virginia Woolf
, among the most important works of English modernist literature
. In his later years, he became increasingly focused on studies of the Ottoman Empire
. He 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 In 1993, Surviving, a collection of previously unpublished works, was released, edited by his grandson Matthew Yorke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
.
discussed Green's novel Party Going and suggested that behind its realistic surface the book hides a complex network of mythical allusions. This led Kermode to include Green in the Modernist movement, and consider the novelist strongly influenced by T.S. Eliot's idea of a "mythic method".
Green's work has received comparatively little critical attention from academics. One of the few academics engaged with Green's work is Jeremy Treglown
, author of "Romancing: The Life and Work of Henry Green" (Faber and Faber, 2000).
John Updike
listed Green as an influence during an interview on the "Charlie Rose
Green Room", a feature on Rose's website. Updike also wrote the introduction to an edition of three of Green's novels: 'Living', 'Loving' and 'Party Going'.
Green was also the subject of an article in Northern Ireland literary magazine The Honest Ulsterman in the Business Section by pseudonymous writer Jude the Obscure.
In the introduction to his Paris Review
interview
with Green, Terry Southern
notes: "An ancient trade compliment, to an author whose technique is highly developed, has been to call him a 'writer's writer'; Henry Green has been referred to as a 'writer's writer's writer.'"
Pen name
A pen name, nom de plume, or literary double, is a pseudonym adopted by an author. A pen name may be used to make the author's name more distinctive, to disguise his or her gender, to distance an author from some or all of his or her works, to protect the author from retribution for his or her...
of Henry Vincent Yorke (29 October 1905 – 13 December 1973), an English author best remembered for the novel Loving
Loving (novel)
Loving is a 1945 novel by British writer Henry Green. Time magazine included the novel in its TIME 100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005. One of his most admired works, Loving describes life above and below stairs in an Irish country house during the Second World War...
, which was featured by Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
in its list of the 100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005.
Biography
Green was born near TewkesburyTewkesbury
Tewkesbury is a town in Gloucestershire, England. It stands at the confluence of the River Severn and the River Avon, and also minor tributaries the Swilgate and Carrant Brook...
, Gloucestershire, into an educated family with successful business interests. His father Vincent Wodehouse Yorke- the son of John Reginald Yorke
John Reginald Yorke
John Reginald Yorke was an English landowner and Conservative politician who sat in the House of Commons between 1864 and 1886.-Background and education:...
and Sophia Matilda de Tuyll
Tuyll
Tuyll is the name of a noble Dutch family, with familial and historical links to England, whose full name is van Tuyll van Serooskerken. Several knights, members of various courts, literary figures, generals, ambassadors, statesmen and explorers carried the family name.-Early and High Middle...
de Serooskerken- was a wealthy landowner and industrialist in Birmingham
Birmingham
Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...
. His mother, Hon. Maud Evelyn Wyndham, was daughter of the second Baron Leconfield
Baron Leconfield
Baron Leconfield, of Leconfield in the East Riding of the County of York, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created in 1859 for George Wyndham. He was the eldest natural son and adopted heir of George Wyndham, 3rd Earl of Egremont...
. Green grew up in Gloucestershire and attended Eton College
Eton College
Eton College, often referred to simply as Eton, is a British independent school for boys aged 13 to 18. It was founded in 1440 by King Henry VI as "The King's College of Our Lady of Eton besides Wyndsor"....
, where he became friends with fellow pupil Anthony Powell
Anthony Powell
Anthony Dymoke Powell CH, CBE was an English novelist best known for his twelve-volume work A Dance to the Music of Time, published between 1951 and 1975....
and wrote most of his first novel, Blindness. He went on to study at Oxford University and there began a friendship and literary rivalry with Evelyn Waugh
Evelyn Waugh
Arthur Evelyn St. John Waugh , known as Evelyn Waugh, was an English writer of novels, travel books and biographies. He was also a prolific journalist and reviewer...
.
Green left Oxford in 1926 without taking a degree and returned to Birmingham
Birmingham
Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...
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
Living (novel)
Living is a 1929 novel by Henry Green. It is a work of sharp social satire, documenting the lives of Birmingham factory workers in the interwar boom years. It is considered a modern classic by scholars, and appears on many University syllabi. The language is notable for its deliberate lack of...
, his second novel, which was written during 1927 and 1928. In 1929 he married his second cousin (they were both great-grandchildren of the 1st Baron Leconfield
Baron Leconfield
Baron Leconfield, of Leconfield in the East Riding of the County of York, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created in 1859 for George Wyndham. He was the eldest natural son and adopted heir of George Wyndham, 3rd Earl of Egremont...
), the Hon. Adelaide Biddulph, also known as 'Dig'. Their son Sebastian was born in 1934. In 1940, Green published Pack My Bag, which he regarded as a nearly-accurate autobiography. During World War II he served as a fireman in the Auxiliary Fire Service
Auxiliary Fire Service
The Auxiliary Fire Service was first formed in 1938 in Great Britain as part of Civil Defence Air raid precautions. Its role was to supplement the work of brigades at local level. In this job it was hampered severely by the incompatibility of equipment used by these different brigades - most...
and these wartime experiences are echoed in his novel Caught; they were also a strong influence on his subsequent novel, Back
Back (novel)
Back is a novel written by British writer Henry Green and published in 1946.- Plot summary :The novel tells the story of Charley Summers, a young Englishman who comes back from Germany, where he was detained as a POW for three years after having been wounded in combat in France . Summers is...
. Politically, Green was a rather traditional Tory
Tory
Toryism is a traditionalist and conservative political philosophy which grew out of the Cavalier faction in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. It is a prominent ideology in the politics of the United Kingdom, but also features in parts of The Commonwealth, particularly in Canada...
his entire life.
Green's novels are often described as being, along with those of Virginia Woolf
Virginia Woolf
Adeline Virginia Woolf was an English author, essayist, publisher, and writer of short stories, regarded as one of the foremost modernist literary figures of the twentieth century....
, among the most important works of English modernist literature
Modernist literature
Modernist literature is sub-genre of Modernism, a predominantly European movement beginning in the early 20th century that was characterized by a self-conscious break with traditional aesthetic forms...
. In his later years, he became increasingly focused on studies of the Ottoman Empire
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
. He 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
Matthew Yorke
Matthew Yorke is a British novelist and editor. His most recent work was 2005's critically acclaimed Chancing It - a short novel for young adults...
and published by Viking Press
Viking Press
Viking Press is an American publishing company owned by the Penguin Group, which has owned the company since 1975. It was founded in New York City on March 1, 1925, by Harold K. Guinzburg and George S. Oppenheim...
.
Appreciation of Green's writing
In his essay The Genesis of Secrecy, British literary critic Frank KermodeFrank Kermode
Sir John Frank Kermode was a highly regarded British literary critic best known for his seminal critical work The Sense of an Ending: Studies in the Theory of Fiction, published in 1967 ....
discussed Green's novel Party Going and suggested that behind its realistic surface the book hides a complex network of mythical allusions. This led Kermode to include Green in the Modernist movement, and consider the novelist strongly influenced by T.S. Eliot's idea of a "mythic method".
Green's work has received comparatively little critical attention from academics. One of the few academics engaged with Green's work is Jeremy Treglown
Jeremy Treglown
Jeremy Treglown is a British author and literary critic, who has written biographies of Roald Dahl, Henry Green and V.S. Pritchett. He is Professor of English at the University of Warwick....
, author of "Romancing: The Life and Work of Henry Green" (Faber and Faber, 2000).
John Updike
John Updike
John Hoyer Updike was an American novelist, poet, short story writer, art critic, and literary critic....
listed Green as an influence during an interview on the "Charlie Rose
Charlie Rose
Charles Peete "Charlie" Rose, Jr. is an American television talk show host and journalist. Since 1991 he has hosted Charlie Rose, an interview show distributed nationally by PBS since 1993...
Green Room", a feature on Rose's website. Updike also wrote the introduction to an edition of three of Green's novels: 'Living', 'Loving' and 'Party Going'.
Green was also the subject of an article in Northern Ireland literary magazine The Honest Ulsterman in the Business Section by pseudonymous writer Jude the Obscure.
In the introduction to his Paris Review
Paris Review
The Paris Review is a literary quarterly founded in 1953 by Harold L. Humes, Peter Matthiessen and George Plimpton. Plimpton edited the Review from its founding until his death in 2003. In its first five years, The Paris Review published works by Jack Kerouac, Philip Larkin, V. S...
interview
Interview
An interview is a conversation between two people where questions are asked by the interviewer to obtain information from the interviewee.- Interview as a Method for Qualitative Research:"Definition" -...
with Green, Terry Southern
Terry Southern
Terry Southern was an American author, essayist, screenwriter and university lecturer, noted for his distinctive satirical style...
notes: "An ancient trade compliment, to an author whose technique is highly developed, has been to call him a 'writer's writer'; Henry Green has been referred to as a 'writer's writer's writer.'"
External links
- 'Molten Treasure', Time Magazine review of 'Loving', 1949
- 'Henry Green, the last English Modernist' by James Wood, Times Literary Supplement
- 'Caught in the web', Guardian article by Sebastian Faulks, 2005
- West Midlands Literary Heritage site including list of books about Henry Green
- 'Literary Encyclopedia' profile of Henry Green by Elizabeth Barry, University of Warwick
- 'Romancing: The Life and Work of Henry Green', Insight on the News article by Rex Roberts, 2001
- 'Traveling With Class: Language and Politics in the Novels of Henry Green', academic thesis by Joseph Rubin, 2004
- 'Landlocked', a long London Review of Books review of "Romancing: The Life and Work of Henry Green" by Jeremy Treglown, 2000
- 'A complicated business', New Criterion review of 'Romancing: The Life and Work of Henry Green' by Jeremy Treglown
- 'The original and idiosyncratic talent of Henry Green', Independent review of 'Romancing: the life and work of Henry Green' by Jeremy Treglown
- BooksellerWorld list of first UK and US editions
- British Library list of holdings including scholarship on Henry Green