The Ministry of Fear (ePub)

Graham Greene (1904-1991) is recognized as one of the most important writers of the twentieth century, achieving both literary acclaim and popular success. His best known works include Brighton Rock, The Heart of the Matter, The Quiet American, and The Power and the Glory. After leaving Oxford, Greene first pursued a career in journalism before dedicating himself full-time to writing with his first big success, Stamboul Train. He became involved in screenwriting and wrote adaptations for the cinema as well as original screenplays, the most successful being The Third Man. Religious, moral, and political themes are at the root of much of his work, and throughout his life he traveled to some of the wildest and most volatile parts of the world, which provided settings for his fiction. Greene was a member of the Order of Merit and a Companion of Honour.

“Few writers can distill drama from a twisted soul with more skill than Mr. Greene; few experts in the field would dare to combine all the elements you will find in The Ministry of Fear. . . . What writer’s magic makes each of these figures glow with a baleful iridescence all their own? . . . A fine sense of balance, mood and timing; a mastery of the well-known English gift for underplaying; a liberal use of the creeping-paralysis method in the big scenes . . . Mr. Greene lets us burn—and makes us linger over apparent trifles.” —The New York Times

Praise for Graham Greene
“The most ingenious, inventive and exciting of our novelists, rich in exactly etched and moving portraits of real human beings . . . A master of storytelling.” —V. S. Pritchett, The Times (London)
 
“In a class by himself . . . The ultimate chronicler of twentieth-century man’s consciousness and anxiety.” —William Golding
 
“A superb storyteller with a gift for provoking controversy.” —The New York Times
 
“Greene had the sharpest eyes for trouble, the finest nose for human weaknesses, and was pitilessly honest in his observations. . . . For experience of a whole century he was the man within.” —Norman Sherry, The Independent
 
“No serious writer of [the twentieth] century has more thoroughly invaded and shaped the public imagination than Graham Greene.” —Time
 
“One of the finest writers of any language.” —The Washington Post
 
“A superb storyteller—he had a talent for depicting local colour, a keen sense of the dramatic, an eye for dialogue, and skill in pacing his prose.” —The New York Times
 
“Graham Greene was a profound and experimental stylist.” —Time Out