Graham Greene (1922)

Not only did Graham Greene attend Berkhamsted School for some years, his father Charles Greene was Headmaster of the school from 1911 to 1927. After studying at Oxford, Greene worked as a journalist and as a copy editor for The Times, eventually abandoning his journalistic career to focus on his writing.

Greene's first novel The Man Within was published in 1929, followed by several written works throughout the 1930s. Brighton Rock, one of Greene's most famous works, published in 1938 has been adapted into film on multiple occasions, most recently in 2010. 

It was through his extensive travelling that Greene found much of the material for his writing. One of Greene's most critically-acclaimed novels, The Power and the Glory, shows the horror of Catholic persecution in Mexico. This work was awarded the Hawthornden Prize in 1941. During the Second World War, Greene worked for the British Secret Intelligence Service in Sierra Leone and his novel The Heart of the Matter is largely based on Greene's wartime experiences.

Since its inception in 1998, the Graham Greene Birthplace Trust has organised the Graham Greene International Festival, which takes place in and around Greene's home town of Berkhamsted. The festival includes talks and discussions, film adaptations of Greene's novels and guided walks around Berkhamsted, including the school where Greene spent much of his childhood.