Graham Greene. First American edition, first printing with no mention of subsequent printings. New York: Viking Press, 1948. Both unclipped dust jacket, in a mylar protected wrapper, and hardcover in Very Good+ condition. Dust jacket designed by Edgar Curlin. Still has the original price $3.00 on inside flap of jacket. The jacket has a small quarter-inch tear located on bottom front and some chipping on the spine. No writing or markings in the book, 306 pp.
Graham Greene was a leading 20th century novelist. He was shortlisted for the Nobel Prize for Literature twice and wrote over 25 novels total. This was an Immensely popular book upon publication. The novel was #40 on Modern Library's list of the 100 Best Novels of the 20th Century. The book was also chosen by TIME Magazine as one of the 100 best novels published in English since 1923. Winner of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and considered one of the best English-language novels of the 20th century. The 1953 film version starred Trevor Howard and Maria Schell. Overall, a highly presentable and collectible copy of an important piece of 20th Century literature.
Greene's first post-war novel, portraying the moral crisis of a good man "increasingly enmeshed in love, in intrigue, and in evil" (per the jacket), while serving as a wartime British colonial police officer in a West African capital. In 1942-1943 Greene himself had served in Freetown, Sierra Leone, as an MI6 intelligence officer -- under the later-to-be-notorious double agent Kim Philby.
