author
Henry Green
1905–1973
Best remembered for Living, Party Going, and Loving, this quietly brilliant English novelist turned ordinary speech and everyday social life into something sharp, strange, and unforgettable. He also spent much of his life working in his family’s engineering business, giving his fiction an unusual feel for class, work, and the rhythms of modern life.
1 Audiobook
Blindness
by Henry Green
About the author
Born Henry Vincent Yorke in Gloucestershire in 1905, he wrote under the pen name Henry Green and became one of the most admired English novelists of the 20th century. He was educated at Eton and Oxford, though he left university early and went into his family’s engineering firm, balancing business life with an intense commitment to fiction.
That double life shaped his books. His novels often pay close attention to work, conversation, and the small misunderstandings between people, and they are especially known for their subtle treatment of class. Living drew on factory life in Birmingham, while Party Going and Loving helped secure his reputation for elegant, unusual prose and sharp social observation.
Green published nine novels between the 1920s and early 1950s. Though never a mass-market writer, he has remained a favorite among critics and fellow novelists for his compressed style, dry humor, and ability to make everyday scenes feel vivid and unpredictable. He died in 1973.