Reading Order
The Confidential AgentGraham Greene The Confidential Agent Reading Order
Graham Greene's The Confidential Agent (1939) is one of his most concentrated entertainments — a political thriller written in six weeks (in the mornings, while he wrote The Power and the Glory in the afternoons) about a Spanish civil war agent who comes to England to buy coal for the republican government and finds himself in a nightmare of failure. The protagonist, D., is one of Greene's most sympathetic creations — an academic medievalist turned reluctant spy, surrounded by people who are better at the game than he is, trying to maintain a code of decency in a world that no longer uses one.
Where to start
The Quiet American
Complete The Confidential Agent Book List
- 1Buy
The Power and the Glory
Graham Greene·1940·The companion masterpiece — written simultaneously in the afternoons while Greene wrote The Confidential Agent in the mornings; the Catholic priest in revolutionary Mexico is the inverse of D. in England: while D. fails in the worldly political sphere, the whisky priest succeeds in the spiritual one. - 2Buy
The Confidential Agent
Graham Greene·1939·The novel itself — D., Else, Rose Cullen, L., and the coal that the republican government needs. - 3Buy
Stamboul Train
Graham Greene·1932·The companion entertainment — Greene's first popular thriller and the one that established the territory The Confidential Agent occupies; the comparison shows how Greene's entertainments developed from the train-journey structure to the political-thriller structure. - 4Buy
Homage to Catalonia
George Orwell·1938·Orwell's memoir of his service in the Spanish Civil War — the essential non-fiction companion to The Confidential Agent's portrait of someone on the republican side who discovers that the idealism of the struggle does not survive the actual experience of the war; both are organized around the disillusionment that follows the encounter with political reality. - 5Buy
For Whom the Bell Tolls
Ernest Hemingway·1940·Hemingway's Spanish Civil War novel — the essential comparison in the American tradition; where Greene's D. is a failed academic who has lost his faith in people, Hemingway's Jordan is a true believer whose faith is tested but sustained; the contrast shows the American and British responses to the same political catastrophe. - 6Buy
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold
John le Carré·1963·The essential heir to Greene's entertainments in the British tradition — le Carré's portrait of Alec Leamas, a man who has had his faith in the West destroyed by what he has been asked to do for it; the direct development of what The Confidential Agent establishes about the moral costs of political violence - 7Buy
The Human Factor
Graham Greene·1978·Greene's late espionage novel — Maurice Castle, a double agent in the British intelligence service; the most direct development of The Confidential Agent's concerns in Greene's mature work; both are organized around a man who has a code of loyalty that the intelligence organization cannot accommodate.
The Confidential Agent — Frequently Asked Questions
What is The Confidential Agent about?
The Confidential Agent (1939) follows D., a Spanish republican agent who comes to England to buy coal for his government's war effort during the Spanish Civil War. He finds himself in a nightmare of failure: his identification papers are stolen, the coal deal is sabotaged, and he is pursued by agents of the other side. The novel is organized around a man of decency who discovers that decency is a liability in the world he has entered.
How did Graham Greene write The Confidential Agent?
Greene wrote The Confidential Agent in six weeks in the mornings of autumn 1938 while simultaneously writing The Power and the Glory in the afternoons. He was taking Benzedrine to maintain the pace. The two novels were written simultaneously — the morning entertainment and the afternoon serious work — which makes them an extraordinary pair to read together.
Is The Confidential Agent based on the Spanish Civil War?
Yes — the novel is set during the Spanish Civil War, and D. is an agent for the republican government (though the word 'republican' is never used). Greene's sympathies were with the republican side, and the novel's portrait of D.'s failure reflects the broader disillusionment of the Western left with the outcome of the war.
Monthly Newsletter
Never miss a big release
Get the most anticipated upcoming books delivered to your inbox once a month — no spam, no filler.
Monthly only. Unsubscribe anytime.
Book links are Amazon affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, BookReleaseRadar earns from qualifying purchases at no extra cost to you.