Brighton Rock

Henry Graham Greene was born in 1904 into a influential Hertfordshire family, his mother the cousin of Robert Louis Stevenson. After leaving Balliol College, Oxford, where he published his first book of poetry, Greene began a newspaper career as a sub-editor on The Times, leaving to write full-time after his first novel, The Man Within, was published in 1929. His first major success was Stamboul Train (1932), the first of his novels to be adapted for film. During the Second World War, he worked for MI6 in Sierra Leone, where he set his novel The Heart of the Matter, which won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. Greene wrote more than 25 novels, including Brighton Rock (1938), The End of the Affair (1951), Our Man in Havana (1958) and The Comedians (1966). In 1986, he was appointed to the Order of Merit. He died in 1991.

Geoff Grandfield studied Illustration at Maidstone College of Art and the Royal College of Art in London. Since graduating from the RCA with an MA he has won many awards as an illustrator and has combined his practice with teaching, leading the BA Illustration course at Middlesex University before his current post as Course Director of BA (Hons) Illustration and Animation at Kingston University in London. He has illustrated a number of books for The Folio Society, including Mary Renault’s Alexander and Theseus novels.