About the book

Synopsis

'The most gifted prose writer of his generation' V.S. Pritchett

Edited by the author's grandson, the novelist Matthew Yorke, and with an Introduction by John Updike, this book is an excellent selection of Henry Green's uncollected writings. It includes a number of outstanding stories never previously published, written during the '20s and '30s ('Bees', 'Saturday', 'Excursion', and the remarkable 'Mood' among them). It contains a highly entertaining account of Green's service in the London Fire Brigade during the War; a short play written in the 1950s; and a selection of his journalism, including revelatory articles about the craft of writing, a marvellous evocation of Venice, a description of falling in love, reviews which illuminate his literary enthusiasm and the entertaining interview with Terry Southern for the Paris Review. It is rounded off with a biographical memoir by Green's son, Sebastian Yorke. Fascinating and invaluable as an introduction to Green, Surviving casts new light on his work and illustrates the many facets of this exceptional writer, one of the two most important English novelists of his time.

'His novels reproduce, as few English novels do, the actual sensations of living' Elizabeth Bowen

'Henry Green is one of the two great creative novelists of this generation (the other being Ivy Compton-Burnett). By 'creative' I mean that the development of his talent brought something completely new into the English novel and each new work of his is a creation of his peculiar art' Olivia Manning