The Confidential Agent
First edition
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| Author | Graham Greene |
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| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Thriller novel |
| Publisher | William Heinemann |
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Publication date
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1939 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
The Confidential Agent (1939) is a thriller novel by British author Graham Greene. Fueled by Benzedrine, Greene wrote it in six weeks. To avoid distraction, he rented a room in Bloomsbury from a landlady who lived in an apartment below him. He used that apartment in the novel (it's where D. hides for a day) and had an affair with the landlady's daughter. He wrote the book for money and was so displeased with his work that he wanted it published under a pseudonym. But critics took a far different view; The New York Times, for example, called the novel "a magnificent tour-de-force."
D, a former university professor speaking perfect English, is sent by his government, two years into a vicious civil war, on a secret mission to buy coal in England. Traumatised by the war, in which his wife was executed in error and he was buried alive in an air raid, England to him is a place of peace and happy memories.
On the ferry he sees L, an aristocratic supporter of the right-wing rebels, and Rose, a bold and wilful English girl. Waiting for the train to London, Rose tells D she is the estranged daughter of Lord Benditch, the mineowner D has come to negotiate with. Impatient, she hires a car and offers D a lift, but when they stop at a hotel a man in the washroom tries to rob D. Deciding to drive on alone, he is followed by L, whose chauffeur beats him up and leaves him by the roadside. They do not find the government documents D had hidden in his shoe.
Hitching a lift to London, D follows instructions by booking into a seedy hotel, where he befriends the 14-year old maid Else and persuades her to hide his documents in her stocking. Then he goes to meet his contact K, who works at a language school teaching an invented language called Entrenationo. Back at his hotel, Rose rings and asks him to meet her, but on his way a bullet misses him. Returning to the spot with Rose, she finds the bullet and realises he is in mortal danger. Telling her about his work before the war as one of the world's leading experts on the Chanson de Roland, the two become closer.
Retrieving his documents from Else next day, he goes to see Lord Benditch and his fellow directors, one of whom is Forbes, informally engaged to Rose. They are ready to do a deal and ask for his documents, which he discovers have been lifted from him on the way in by Benditch's butler. Dismissed, on his way out he sees L going in to talk to the mineowners.
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