Synopses & Reviews
"I met Aunt Augusta for the first time at my mother's funeral..."
Described by Graham Greene as "the only book I have written just for the fun of it," Travels with My Aunt is the story of Henry Pulling, a retired and complacent bank manager, who meets his septuagenarian Aunt Augusta for the first time at what he supposes to be his mother's funeral. She soon persuades Henry to abandon his dull suburban existence to travel her way to Brighton, Paris, Istanbul, Paraguay. Through Aunt Augusta, one of Greene's greatest comic creations, Henry joins a shiftless, twilight society; mixes with hippies, war criminals, and CIA men; smokes pot; and breaks all currency regulations.
Originally published in 1970, Travels with My Aunt gives us an intoxicating entertainment yet also confronts us with some of the most perplexing of human dilemmas. This Graham Greene Centennial Edition includes a new introductory essay by Gloria Emerson.
Review
"A triumphant comedy....The aunt of Graham Greene's novels turns out to be one of those irrepressible souls, who, like the Wife of Bath...is wise in experience and years but gloriously foolish in all things the English traditionally face with severe prudence." Guy Davenport, National Review
Review
"Travels with My Aunt is solid, mature, amusing, and disturbing." The New Republic
Review
"The book...wholeheartedly embraces a Bacchic emphasis on the here and now. It is a remarkable change of emphasis to have made, and...Greene makes it with great wit." The New York Times Book Review
Review
"No serious writer of [the twentieth century] has more thoroughly invaded and shaped the public imagination than Graham Greene." Time
Synopsis
Described by Graham Greene as "the only book I have written just for the fun of it." Travels with My Aunt is the story of Hanry Pulling, a retired and complacent bank manager, who meets his septuagenarian Aunt Augusta for the first time at what he supposes to be his mother's funeral. She soon persuades Henry to abandon his dull suburban existence to travel her way—to Brighton, Paris, Istanbul, Paraguay. Through Aunt Augusta, one of Greene's greatest comic creations, Henry joins a shiftless, twilight society; mixes with hippies, war criminals, and CIA men; smokes pot; and breaks all currency regulations.
Originally published in 1970, Travels with My Aunt gives us an intoxicating entertainment yet also confronts us with some of the most perplexing of human dilemmas.
About the Author
Graham Greene (19041991) worked as a journalist and critic, and was later employed by the foreign office. His many books include
The Power and the Glory,
The Third Man,
Our Man in Havana,
The Comedians, and
Travels with My Aunt. He is the subject of an acclaimed three-volume biography by Norman Sherry.
A former journalist and war correspondent, Gloria Emerson is the author of Winners & Losers, which received the National Book Award, and, most recently, a novel, Loving Graham Greene.