Shades of Greene: One Generation of an English Family - Hardcover

Lewis, Jeremy

3.71

21 ratings by Goodreads

9780224079211: Shades of Greene: One Generation of an English Family

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0224079212 ISBN 13: 9780224079211

Publisher: Jonathan Cape, 2010

View all copies of this ISBN edition:

A remarkable group portrait of one English family -- the famed, intriguing and pioneering Greenes.

In the early years of the last century, two brothers, Charles and Edward Greene, settled in Berkhamsted, a small country town thirty miles from London. There they were to found a remarkable dynasty -- fathering twelve children between them -- each of whom were to lead varied, well-documented and extraordinary lives.

This book explores for the first time this generation of the Greene family in colourful detail -- their relationships and shared history, and their lives -- as explorers, writers, doctors, spies, politicians and much more. There is Graham, one of the greatest English writers of the twentieth century; Hugh, the Daily Telegraph's Berlin correspondent in the years leading up to WWII, and later Director-General of the BBC; Raymond, a brilliant mountaineer and medical man
who took part in the 1933 Everest expedition; their sister Elisabeth, MI6 agent, enlisting family and friends into the secret service; cousin Ben, a pacifist and Labour Party activist who was interned in 1940 at the same time as Oswald Mosley; his sister, Barbara, who spent the war in Germany; and their younger brother Felix, a pioneer of radio journalism and apologist for Communist China, who moved to a commune in California with his cousin Christopher Isherwood and Aldous Huxley; and Herbert, the black sheep of the family, fantasist and amateur spy.

Interlacing biography, history, high adventure and scenes from literary life, Shades of Greene provides a riveting insight into the self-confident, enterprising, upper middle-class English world that flourished between the 1920s and the 1970s: and into a truly remarkable tribe.
From the Trade Paperback edition.

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

About the Author:

JEREMY LEWIS worked in publishing for much of his life after leaving Trinity College, Dublin, in 1965, and was a director of Chatto & Windus for ten years. He has been a freelance writer and editor since 1989. The deputy editor of the London Magazine from 1990 to 1994, he has been commissioning editor of the Oldie since 1997, and editor-at-large of the Literary Review since 2004. He has written three volumes of autobiography, Playing for Time, Kindred Spirits and
Grub Street Irregular, and edited an anthology, The Chatto Book of Office Life.

His authorised biography of Cyril Connolly was published by Jonathan Cape in 1997, and a life of Tobias Smollett in 2003. A committee member of the R.S. Surtees Society and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, he is currently researching a biography of David Astor of the Observer, to be published by Jonathan Cape. He is married with two daughters and lives near Richmond Park.
From the Trade Paperback edition.

Review:

"A celebration of a remarkable family', 'a remarkably detailed account of the old-boy network, seen from the sunny side" -- John Carey * Sunday Times Culture * "An adept and confident editor, choosing only the most memorable anecdotes and constantly reminding the reader of the interplay between family members', 'It is clear that the achievements of the extended Greene family were truly extraordinary. In Shades of Greene they have a worthy chronicle." -- Tim Butcher * The Times * "Shades of Greene is an ambitious undertaking that has needed a prodigious amount of research ... Mr Lewis displays skill and stamina in interweaving his subjects' lives ... with his sense of mischief and his see-through glass prose, Greene would surely have approved" * Economist * "Lewis's hugely detailed, exhaustively researched family saga makes you marvel, again and again, at the strangeness of this very English family, while leaving you fervently grateful you're not actually related to them" -- John Walsh * Independent * "Lewis has a first class nose for truffling out good anecdotes" -- Ian Irvine * Observer *

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.