GREENE Graham - TLS 1958 to his bookseller about detective novels
Graham GREENE (1904-1991)
Typed Letter Signed (“Graham Greene”) to the bookseller B. Harding-Edgar of Charles Rare Books in Buntingford, Hertfordshire, thanking him for lists of books including titles by Boisgobey and Gaboriau.1 page 4to, Albany, London W1, 5 November 1958.
“Thank you for letting me see these two lists which I return herewith. I am afraid the collection for which I buy has already got more Boisgobey titles in their original bindings than the ones listed here and the same applies to Gaboriaus.
I very much appreciate seeing these first and I will be glad if you would report to me any detective novels before 1902.”
Emile Gaboriau was one of the early great writers of detective novels. His detective, Monsieur Lecoq, to some extent based on the real-life criminal turned head of police Eugène Vidocq, may well have contributed slightly to the character of Sherlock Holmes, although at one point Holmes speaks slightingly of Gaboriau’s novels. Gaboriau’s contemporary Fortuné du Boisgobey was a prolific and popular writer of thrillers.
Greene himself had been recruited to work, briefly it appears, for MI6 where he was befriended by Kim Philby. His thrillers proved very successful and have remained popular alongside his more overtly literary works.
The letter has some very minor foxing, and slight crumpling but remains in clear and legible condition.
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