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  • Published: 1 October 2010
  • ISBN: 9781409020400
  • Imprint: Vintage Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 208

Twenty-One Stories




A celebrated collection of stories from one of the most important British writers of the twentieth century. Features Greene's most famous short story, 'The Destructors'

A celebrated collection of stories from one of the most important British writers of the twentieth century. Features Greene's most famous short story, 'The Destructors'.

Written between 1929 and 1954, each of these stories bears the hallmark themes that characterise Greene's great novels: betrayal and vengeance, love and hate, pity and violence.

Opening with the iconic story 'The Destructors', in which a gang of schoolboys destroys a house that has survived the Blitz, Greene offers us deliciously satisfying glimpses into twenty-one worlds, with each piece written as masterfully as his novels. From the chilling climax of a children's birthday party, to a man whose youthful indiscretions come back to haunt him, these are the unmistakable work of one of the twentieth century's greatest and most adored storytellers.

  • Published: 1 October 2010
  • ISBN: 9781409020400
  • Imprint: Vintage Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 208

About the author

Graham Greene

Graham Greene was born in 1904. He worked as a journalist and critic, and in 1940 became literary editor of the Spectator. He was later employed by the Foreign Office. As well as his many novels, Graham Greene wrote several collections of short stories, four travel books, six plays, three books of autobiography, two of biography and four books for children. He also wrote hundreds of essays, and film and book reviews. Graham Greene was a member of the Order of Merit and a Companion of Honour. He died in April 1991.

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Praise for Twenty-One Stories

A superb storyteller..he had a talent for depicting local colour, which he gathered at first hand; a keen sense of the dramatic; an eye for dialogue, and skill in pacing his prose - New York Times

One of the most important British writers of the twentieth century

Daily Telegraph

Greene was a force beyond his books... The outsider, the dissenter, the spoiled priest, the failure, the classic underdog - out of characters such as these Greene made novels and stories which have enriched hundreds of thousands of readers

Melvyn Bragg