The Graham Greene papers document the life and work of Greene, including his childhood and family, as well as his career as a journalist and writer. The collection is global, with material from and concerning a variety of countries. Topics include literary culture, film history, mid-to-late twentieth century global history, wars, revolutions, counterintelligence, communism, and Catholicism.

The correspondence series documents Greene’s publishing career, involvement in the film and television industry, and interest in world politics, as well as his relationships and broad circle of acquaintances. Included are correspondence with family, business agents, attorneys, and publishers; correspondence related to Graham Greene Productions, a production company established by Greene and Alexander Korda, and Vivien Greene’s dollhouse museum, the Rotunda; as well as fan mail and interview requests. Of special interest are exchanges with film, literary, and political figures, as well as fellow operatives in British intelligence.

Greene’s work as an author is represented in the Literary Works series through a variety of genres: articles and essays, children’s books, editorial work, films scripts, introductions, letters to the editor and editorials, nonfiction, novels, plays, poetry, reviews, short stories, radio scripts, and television scripts. Also included in the series are essays Greene and his siblings wrote and submitted pseudonymously to newspaper contests seeking entries written in Greene’s style and two bound volumes containing a handwritten Greene family newspaper produced from 1911-1912 entitled The Schoolhouse Gazette.

Travel is a theme throughout the collection, evidenced by maps, passports, and even a Travel Scrabble game, as well as correspondence, manuscripts of articles and books, and photographs. Greene visited countries in turmoil, which not only informed his journalism, but also inspired his fiction and and long-form nonfiction writing.

Materials types found in the papers include correspondence and literary drafts, proofs, and reviews, as well as art, clippings, ephemera, legal documents, maps, passports, photographs, postcards, posters, playbills, programs, research material, scrapbooks. The bulk of the materials date between 1950-1990, with some dating to 1807 and other papers, collected after Greene’s death, dating to 1999.