Details
GREENE, Graham (1904-1991). Autograph annotations to uncorrected advance proofs of Christopher Sykes. Evelyn Waugh. A Biography. London: Collins, 1975, inscribed to Greene by Sykes on title, June 1975, and annotated by Greene on approximately 70 pages, comments ranging from a few words to twenty lines on a blank page, with notes of approval or queries to a number of other passages.
Greene's annotations are valuable in preserving anecdotes about Waugh and their relationship (usually of Waugh's magnificent rudeness or intractability, 'in one of his curious moods') as well as noting remembered snatches of conversation ('E. once told me that my sexual experience was badly limited because I had never passed through an homosexual phase'), or revealing minutiae such as Waugh's inscriptions to Greene in books; in some sense the notes are a running critique of the biography ('C. seems incapable of telling when E. is making a joke'). Occasionally comments provide insights into Greene's own experience and beliefs: 'I think I have always doubted the doctrine of Hell', or excusing apparent aloofness with the note 'In fact I was suffering from an inferiority complex grown at school'.
Greene's annotations are valuable in preserving anecdotes about Waugh and their relationship (usually of Waugh's magnificent rudeness or intractability, 'in one of his curious moods') as well as noting remembered snatches of conversation ('E. once told me that my sexual experience was badly limited because I had never passed through an homosexual phase'), or revealing minutiae such as Waugh's inscriptions to Greene in books; in some sense the notes are a running critique of the biography ('C. seems incapable of telling when E. is making a joke'). Occasionally comments provide insights into Greene's own experience and beliefs: 'I think I have always doubted the doctrine of Hell', or excusing apparent aloofness with the note 'In fact I was suffering from an inferiority complex grown at school'.
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