The Lost Childhood and Other Essays

First edition
(publ. Eyre & Spottiswoode)
Cover art by Stein

The Lost Childhood and Other Essays is a collection of essays and book reviews by Graham Greene published in 1951. Two of its four parts, Personal Prologue (i.e. The Lost Childhood) and Personal Postscript, comprise seven invaluable pieces of autobiography.

The part Novels and Novelists collects Greene's more or less professional looks at fellow writers, variously esteemed or deplored or fondly remembered, while Some Characters expands to takes in poets and other artists as well.

Novels and Novelists

Henry James: the Private Universe
Henry James: the Religious Aspect
The Portrait of a Lady
The Plays of Henry James
The Lesson of the Master - also on James
The Young Dickens
Fielding and Sterne
From Feathers to Iron - on Robert Louis Stevenson (the cousin of Greene's mother)
Francois Mauriac
The Burden of Childhood - on Rudyard Kipling and Hector Hugh Munro
Man Made Angry - on Léon Bloy
Walter de la Mare's Short Stories
The Saratoga Trunk - on Dorothy Richardson
The Poker-face - on Hesketh Pearson's biography of Conan Doyle
Ford Madox Ford
Frederick Rolfe: Edwardian Inferno - on Baron Corvo
Frederick Rolfe: From the Devil's Side
Frederick Rolfe: A Spoiled Priest
Remembering Mr Jones - on Joseph Conrad
The Domestic Background - also on Conrad, concerning his married life
Isis Idol - on Charles Mallet's biography of Anthony Hope
The Last Buchan - on Baron Tweedsmuir
Beatrix Potter
Harkaway's Oxford - on stories by Edwin J Brett in the Boys' Own Paper
The Unknown War - on more recent stories in the B.O.P. and similar publications

Some Characters

Francis Parkman
Samuel Butler
The Ugly Act - on John Connell's biography of W. E. Henley
Eric Gill
Invincible Ignorance - on Havelock Ellis
Herbert Read
George Darley
An Unheroic Dramatist - on Roger Boyle, 1st Earl of Orrery
Dr Oates of Salamanca - on Jane Lane's biography of Titus Oates
A Hoax on Mr Hulton - on London tradesmen in the days of Bonnie Prince Charlie
Don in Mexico - on Cambridge professor J.B.Trend
Portrait of a Maiden Lady - on Beverley Nichols
Mr Cook's Century - on Thomas Cook
Great Dog of Weimar - on the painter Mathilde, Baroness von Freytag-Loringhoven

Notes and references

Sherry, Norman. The Life of Graham Greene, Volume Three: 1955-1991. Johnathan Cape / Pimlico, 2004. ISBN 1-84413-754-6. p 227

v t e Graham Greene
Bibliography
Novels	The Man Within (1929) The Name of Action (1930) Rumour at Nightfall (1932) Stamboul Train (1932) It's a Battlefield (1934) England Made Me (1935) A Gun for Sale (1936) Brighton Rock (1938) The Confidential Agent (1939) The Power and the Glory (1940) The Ministry of Fear (1943) The Heart of the Matter (1948) The Third Man (novella; 1949) The End of the Affair (1951) The Quiet American (1955) Loser Takes All (1955) Our Man in Havana (1958) A Burnt-Out Case (1960) The Comedians (1966) Travels with My Aunt (1969) The Honorary Consul (1973) The Human Factor (1978) Doctor Fischer of Geneva (1980) Monsignor Quixote (1982) The Tenth Man (1985) The Captain and the Enemy (1988) No Man's Land (2005)
Non-fiction	Journey Without Maps (1936) The Lawless Roads (1939) The Lost Childhood and Other Essays (1951) In Search of a Character (1961) A Sort of Life (1971) Ways of Escape (1980) Getting to Know the General: The Story of an Involvement (1984)
Plays	The Living Room (1953) The Potting Shed (1957) The Complaisant Lover (1959) Carving a Statue (1964) The Return of A. J. Raffles (1975) The Great Jowett (1981) Yes and No (1983) For Whom the Bell Chimes (1983)
Story collections	Twenty-One Stories (1954) A Sense of Reality (1963) May We Borrow Your Husband? (1967) The Last Word and Other Stories (1990)
Short stories	"The End of the Party" (1929) "Proof Positive" (1930) "The Basement Room" (1936) "Across the Bridge" (1938) "Alas, Poor Maling" (1940) "The Blue Film" (1954) "The Destructors" (1954) "A Shocking Accident" "The Invisible Japanese Gentlemen" "The Last Word"
Screenplays	21 Days (1940) Brighton Rock (1948) The Fallen Idol (1948) The Third Man (1949) Loser Takes All (1956) Saint Joan (1957) Our Man in Havana (1959) The Comedians (1967) Monsignor Quixote (1985)
Adaptations	Orient Express (1934) The Green Cockatoo (1937) This Gun for Hire (1942) Went the Day Well? (1942) Ministry of Fear (1944) The Heart of the Matter (1953) The End of the Affair (1955) The Quiet American (1958) Travels with My Aunt (1972) The Human Factor (1979) The Honorary Consul (1983) The End of the Affair (1999) The Quiet American (2002) Brighton Rock (2010)
Other	Brighton Rock (play) Shades of Greene
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