First Edition The Quiet American by Graham Greene, 1955

Age:
1955
Material:
Book
Dimensions:
20cm x 14cm
Shipping:
Standard Parcel
Price:
£ 20
First Edition The Quiet American by Graham Greene, published by William Heinemann, London in 1955.
Without dust cover. The green cloth boards show wrinkles and there is some sun fading. The binding is tight and the pages are clean although there is foxing to the page ends. The owner’s name is marked in ink with a 1956 date.
The novel implicitly questions the foundations of growing American involvement in Vietnam in the 1950s. it received much attention due to its prediction of the outcome of the Vietnam War and subsequent American foreign policy since the 1950s. Greene portrays Pyle as so blinded by American exceptionalism that he cannot see the calamities he brings upon the Vietnamese. The book uses Greene‘s experiences as a war correspondent for The Times and Le Figaro in French Indochina 1951–1954. He was apparently inspired to write The Quiet American during October 1951 while driving back to Saigon from Ben Tre province. He was accompanied by an American aid worker who lectured him about finding a "third force in Vietnam". The novel was twice adapted as films, in 1958 and again in 2002.