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Indian Express
16-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Indian Express
A new story by Graham Greene, an invitation to reassess a familiar author
The wind keens outside the window, the rain a whiplash on the shutters. Inside a rented apartment on the French Riviera, a solitary traveller reads to pass the interminable hours of the storm. The posthumous discovery of Graham Greene's ghost story 'Reading at Night', possibly written in 1962 and only just published in Strand Magazine, a Michigan-based quarterly, offers more than just a literary footnote. It reveals the elasticity of a writer best known for his Catholic guilt-laced thrillers and political novels. Discovered in the archives of the University of Texas at Austin, the story's haunted atmosphere, the tension between memory and perception, its spectral uncertainty, reveal a writer attuned to the darkness that lingers just beyond the reach of reason. One of the finest writers of the 20th century, Greene is not alone in genre detours. The same edition of the magazine also carries a short story by Ian Fleming about a faded journalist grappling with the summons from a media baron, a departure from his flamboyant James Bond series. From Henry James's eerie Turn of the Screw (1898) to the genre-bending fiction of Margaret Atwood and Kazuo Ishiguro, writers have often strayed from familiar ground to pursue artistic reinvention. These forays reflect not inconsistency, but range — and a willingness to engage with a broader emotional spectrum of storytelling. There is also something magnetic about 'lost' stories. When forgotten works surface, they invite readers to reassess familiar authors through unfamiliar lenses. They serve as time capsules, preserving the anxieties, experiments, or ambitions that didn't fit neatly into a writer's canon. For a new generation, these offer a chance to encounter literary titans not through weighty reputations but through more intimate pieces. 'Reading at Night' may be a ghost story, but its real power lies in re-animating Greene, reminding readers that even great storytellers can live outside their legacies, experimenting on the margins.
The Guardian
14-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
‘Eerie gem' of an unearthed Graham Greene story published in Strand Magazine
A short ghost story by Graham Greene described by analysts as 'an eerie gem' was published for the first time on Wednesday, a rare glimpse into the largely uncelebrated darker side of one of the giants of 20th-century literature. Reading at Night appears in the 75th issue of Strand Magazine, a New York literary quarterly that has built a reputation for finding and publishing 'lost' writings of well-known authors. The landmark edition also makes widely available for the first time a previously little-known short story by renowned spy novelist Ian Fleming, author of the James Bond series of books. Greene's tale delves into a resurrection of 'childhood fears and imagined horrors' experienced by a terrified solo male traveler as he reads supernatural stories in bed on a stormy night on the French Riviera. The story was probably written in 1962, Greene biographer Jon Wise told Strand, during a relatively barren period of his career in which the English writer said he 'didn't have a novel in him'. It is a departure from the deeper and more complex style of writing expressed in Greene's better-known psychological and political thrillers including The Third Man, Our Man in Havana, The Power and the Glory, and Brighton Rock. 'Greene wasn't just a masterful novelist, he also excelled at the short story form, producing numerous classics,' said Andrew F Gulli, managing editor of Strand Magazine. 'As a huge admirer of Graham Greene, whom I've often considered one of the 10 greatest writers of the 20th century, this piece was a personal highlight. It's especially meaningful given that he published a chilling ghost story, A Little Place Off the Edgware Road, in the original Strand Magazine back in 1939. 'While the story featured here may carry less overt menace, it still demonstrates Greene's remarkable ability to hold a reader's attention and subtly blur the line between entertainment and drama. Greene is a very serious author, and here there's humor. It's a playful yet chilling nod to the great supernatural stylists.' In the story, the protagonist recalls how reading Dracula and horror stories by MR James traumatized him as a child, and from then 'he had never enjoyed reading alone in bed anything which might prove ghostly or violent'. So when he finds himself alone in the bedroom of a 'strange' rented house on the Côte d'Azur, in the middle of a raging storm, and with only a paperback anthology of stories for company, his old fears come rushing back. In both the creepy story he reads, and the bedroom he is reading it in, there are mysterious scratching noises on the glass of the windows. Gulli said the manuscript was found in archives at the Harry Ransom Center library at the University of Texas at Austin, and was subsequently evaluated and transcribed by Camilla Greene, steward of the Greene literary estate and granddaughter of the writer, who died in 1991. 'This eerie gem remained tucked away until now,' Gulli said. 'It's a story you can identify with. Weird things can happen to you when you're traveling alone, not weird like this story, but I've had odd knocks on the door in the middle of the night, or some unusual creaking, or you have a nightmare or something. 'It's kind of like an everyday event and Graham Greene, with his great turn of phrase, his great style, turns it into something where it's a what-if that can go a little too far, but just far enough to have a lot of interest to it.' The story by Fleming, meanwhile, called The Shameful Dream, is also a separation from the author's traditional fare. It builds suspense through a series of recollections of previous firings as a London periodical's literary editor prepares for a potentially fateful meeting with the publication's overbearing proprietor. 'While forever associated with the tuxedoed glamor of 007, Fleming was a talent who could transcend genre,' Gulli said. 'This piece has no martinis, no Aston Martins and no villains bent on world domination. It's a quietly unsettling story about a washed-up journalist wrestling with the dread of an invitation to a sadistic media mogul's mansion, a tale more literary than spy thriller, revealing Fleming's lesser-known capacity for irony and sharp social observation.' The story will also feature in Talk of the Devil, a collection of Fleming's writings incorporating short-form fiction, travel essays, lectures, and correspondence with his friend and crime novelist Raymond Chandler, set to be published later this month. In July, 22 of Greene's short stories will feature in another new collection, called Duel Duet, published by Penguin.
Hamilton Spectator
14-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Hamilton Spectator
Rare Ian Fleming story features a Londoner named Bone, Caffery Bone
NEW YORK (AP) — 'James Bond' creator Ian Fleming didn't need to write about Cold War intrigue to consider the ways people scheme against each other. 'The Shameful Dream,' a rare Fleming work published this week, is a short story about a Londoner named Bone, Caffery Bone. Fleming's protagonist is the literary editor of Our World, a periodical 'designed to bring power and social advancement to Lord Ower,' its owner. Bone has been summoned to spend Saturday evening with Lord and Lady Ower, transported to them in a chauffeur-driven Rolls-Royce. Bone suspects, with a feeling of 'inevitable doom,' that he is to meet the same fate of so many employed by Lord Ower — removed from his job and soon forgotten. 'For Lord Ower sacked everyone sooner or later, harshly if they belonged to no union or with a fat check if they did and were in a position to hit back,' Fleming writes. 'If one worked for Lord Ower one was expendable and one just spent oneself until one had gone over the cliff edge and disappeared beneath the waves with a fat splash.' 'The Shameful Dream' appears in this week's Strand Magazine along with another obscure work from a master of intrigue, Graham Greene's 'Reading at Night,' a brief ghost story in which the contents of a paperback anthology becomes frighteningly real. Greene scholars believe that the author of 'Our Man in Havana,' 'The End of the Affair' and other classics dashed off 'Reading at Night' in the early 1960s when he found himself struggling to write a longer narrative. Strand Magazine is a quarterly publication that has run little-known works by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and many others. Managing editor Andrew F. Gulli noted that the current issue was Strand's 75th and that he 'thought it would be interesting for fans to read stories by these two midcentury literary icons side by side — writers whose approaches to the genre were markedly distinct: Greene, with his moral ambiguity and spiritual tension; and Fleming, with his glamorous take on espionage.' Fleming, best known for such Bond thrillers as 'Dr. No' and 'From Russia with Love,' had a career in journalism spanning from the 1930s to the early 1960s, when he was well established as an author. For Reuters in the '30s, he wrote obituaries, covered auto racing in Austria and a Stalin show trial in the Soviet Union. After World War II, he served as foreign manager for the Kemsley newspaper group, a subsidiary of The Sunday Times. Fleming died of a heart attack in 1964, at age 56. Mike VanBlaribum, president of the Ian Fleming Foundation, says that Fleming was clearly drawing upon his own background for 'The Shameful Dream.' But biographers disagree over when Fleming wrote it. According to Nicholas Shakespeare's 'Ian Fleming: The Complete Man,' Fleming worked on the story in the early 1950s, based Lord Ower on his boss, Lord Kemsley, and based Bone upon himself. Lord Ower is sometimes referred to as 'O,' anticipating the spy chief 'M' of the Bond novels. In 'James Bond: The Man and His World,' author Henry Chancellor theorizes that Fleming wrote the story in 1961, and may have been inspired by a dispute with Daily Express owner Lord Beaverbrook over rights to a James Bond comic strip. VanBlaribum speculates that Fleming wrote it in 1951, citing the author's reference to a Sheerline saloon, a luxury car that the UK stopped producing in the mid-1950s. 'It is unlikely that Fleming would have used a decade-old car if the story were written in 1961,' he says. 'In either event, 'The Shameful Dream' was never published. It has been stated that Lord Ower too closely resembled Lord Kemsley.'
Winnipeg Free Press
14-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Winnipeg Free Press
Rare Ian Fleming story features a Londoner named Bone, Caffery Bone
NEW YORK (AP) — 'James Bond' creator Ian Fleming didn't need to write about Cold War intrigue to consider the ways people scheme against each other. 'The Shameful Dream,' a rare Fleming work published this week, is a short story about a Londoner named Bone, Caffery Bone. Fleming's protagonist is the literary editor of Our World, a periodical 'designed to bring power and social advancement to Lord Ower,' its owner. Bone has been summoned to spend Saturday evening with Lord and Lady Ower, transported to them in a chauffeur-driven Rolls-Royce. Bone suspects, with a feeling of 'inevitable doom,' that he is to meet the same fate of so many employed by Lord Ower — removed from his job and soon forgotten. 'For Lord Ower sacked everyone sooner or later, harshly if they belonged to no union or with a fat check if they did and were in a position to hit back,' Fleming writes. 'If one worked for Lord Ower one was expendable and one just spent oneself until one had gone over the cliff edge and disappeared beneath the waves with a fat splash.' 'The Shameful Dream' appears in this week's Strand Magazine along with another obscure work from a master of intrigue, Graham Greene's 'Reading at Night,' a brief ghost story in which the contents of a paperback anthology becomes frighteningly real. Greene scholars believe that the author of 'Our Man in Havana,' 'The End of the Affair' and other classics dashed off 'Reading at Night' in the early 1960s when he found himself struggling to write a longer narrative. Strand Magazine is a quarterly publication that has run little-known works by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and many others. Managing editor Andrew F. Gulli noted that the current issue was Strand's 75th and that he 'thought it would be interesting for fans to read stories by these two midcentury literary icons side by side — writers whose approaches to the genre were markedly distinct: Greene, with his moral ambiguity and spiritual tension; and Fleming, with his glamorous take on espionage.' Fleming, best known for such Bond thrillers as 'Dr. No' and 'From Russia with Love,' had a career in journalism spanning from the 1930s to the early 1960s, when he was well established as an author. For Reuters in the '30s, he wrote obituaries, covered auto racing in Austria and a Stalin show trial in the Soviet Union. After World War II, he served as foreign manager for the Kemsley newspaper group, a subsidiary of The Sunday Times. Fleming died of a heart attack in 1964, at age 56. Mike VanBlaribum, president of the Ian Fleming Foundation, says that Fleming was clearly drawing upon his own background for 'The Shameful Dream.' But biographers disagree over when Fleming wrote it. According to Nicholas Shakespeare's 'Ian Fleming: The Complete Man,' Fleming worked on the story in the early 1950s, based Lord Ower on his boss, Lord Kemsley, and based Bone upon himself. Lord Ower is sometimes referred to as 'O,' anticipating the spy chief 'M' of the Bond novels. In 'James Bond: The Man and His World,' author Henry Chancellor theorizes that Fleming wrote the story in 1961, and may have been inspired by a dispute with Daily Express owner Lord Beaverbrook over rights to a James Bond comic strip. Winnipeg Jets Game Days On Winnipeg Jets game days, hockey writers Mike McIntyre and Ken Wiebe send news, notes and quotes from the morning skate, as well as injury updates and lineup decisions. Arrives a few hours prior to puck drop. VanBlaribum speculates that Fleming wrote it in 1951, citing the author's reference to a Sheerline saloon, a luxury car that the UK stopped producing in the mid-1950s. 'It is unlikely that Fleming would have used a decade-old car if the story were written in 1961,' he says. 'In either event, 'The Shameful Dream' was never published. It has been stated that Lord Ower too closely resembled Lord Kemsley.'
Buzz Feed
08-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Buzz Feed
50 Extremely Rare And Fascinating Pictures Of People Throughout History I Can Pretty Much Guarantee You've Never Heard Of
1. The very first iteration of Ronald McDonald was created by Willard Scott in 1963: 2. The two people depicted in Grant Wood's "American Gothic" actually exist. This is what they looked like: 3. This is Margaret Gorman, the woman who won the very first Miss America competition in 1921: 4. This is Stephan Bibrowski, otherwise known as Lionel the Lion-faced Man. Stephan had a condition known as hypertrichosis that caused hair to grow up to eight inches long all over his body including, obviously, his face: 5. This is George Hackenschmidt, the man credited with inventing the bench press: 6. This is Conrad Veidt, the man whose performance in the 1928 film The Man Who Laughs inspired the look of the iconic villain the Joker: 7. This is Daniel Lambert, a British man who was known as the world's heaviest person in the 18th century: He weighed over 700 pounds. Legend has it he once fought off a bear single-handedly. I'm serious. 8. This is Maud Wagner, who is widely believed to be the first female professional tattoo artist in the US: 9. This is Selma Burke, the woman who designed the portrait of Franklin Roosevelt that's still on the dime to this day: 10. This is John Smith, a Chippewa man who was reported to be 137 years old at the time of his death: 11. This is Ralph Lincoln, the 11th-generation cousin of Abraham Lincoln: 12. This is Franz Reichelt sporting a homemade parachute suit that he was confident would save him if he jumped off the Eiffel Tower: 13. This is Jacques Plante, who in 1959 became the first goalie to ever wear a protective face mask: 14. In 1964, Randy Gardner, pictured here, set the world record for the longest time without sleeping after staying awake 264 hours: 15. This is Maurice Tillet, a wrestler who some say the beloved character Shrek was based on: Tillet, known as the French Angel, apparently went undefeated for 18 months in the early 1940s. 16. This man, Gay Jewel, was declared the "world's heaviest man" in 1899: According to the Strand Magazine, he loved to play the violin and make others laugh. 17. In 1907, world-class swimmer Annette Kellerman was arrested for indecency after she wore a bathing suit like this one to Revere Beach in Massachusetts: 18. This is Rumeysa Gelgi, the world's tallest woman: 19. This is Valentine Tapley, a man who, in 1860, vowed never to cut his beard again if Abraham Lincoln was elected president. Here's him in 1896: Print Collector / Getty Images He won fifth place at a world's longest beard competition that year. 20. This is Albert Woolson, the last surviving Civil War veteran: Star Tribune Via Getty Images / Star Tribune via Getty Images Albert fought for the Union army and died in 1956 at the age of 106. 21. This is Ham the chimpanzee, the first ape launched into space: Mct / Tribune News Service via Getty Images He was sent up to test cognitive function in space as well as the safety of the rocket and capsule being sent up. Ham's mission was successful, and he returned to Earth unharmed and a true American hero. 22. This is Charlotte and Marjorie Collyer, a mother and daughter who survived the wreck of the Titanic in 1912: / Alamy Stock Photo Charlotte's husband and Marjorie's dad Harvey Collyer died in the wreck. Also lost in the tragedy was the family's life savings of £5,000 cash. 23. In 1903, Edward Llewellen (left) made history by breaking the world record and catching the biggest sea bass ever caught off the coast of Catalina Island: Niday Picture Library / Alamy Stock Photo It weighed 425 pounds. 24. Here's Hannes de Jong, the 1970 Pole Sitting World Champion, well, sitting on a pole: Penta Springs / Alamy Stock Photo Yes, the World Pole Sitting Championship was a real thing. In fact, the 1972 winner sat on a pole for 92 hours straight. 25. This is Chandra Bahadur, the shortest man in recorded history: Anadolu Agency / Getty Images He stood just 21.5 inches tall. 26. This is Ahmet Ali Çelikten, a man who is generally considered to be one of the first Black pilots — and perhaps the very first: Aclosund Historic / Alamy Stock Photo He first flew for the Ottoman Empire in World War I. His contemporaries included Eugene Bullard, the first Black military pilot from the United States. 27. This is a wax sculpture of Thomas Wedders, the man whose 7.5-inch nose was apparently the largest nose in history: Click to reveal Twitter: @historyinmemes No jokes. 28. This is Emma Lilian Todd, the first woman to design an airplane: Science History Images / Alamy Stock Photo That is some contraption. 29. This is Annie Edson Taylor, the first person to survive going over Niagara Falls while inside a barrel: Pictorial Press Ltd. / Alamy Stock Photo She was 62 years old at the time. People going over waterfalls in a barrel fell off real hard. We should bring it back. 30. This is William Hutchings, one of the last surviving American Revolutionary War veterans: FAY 2018 / Alamy Stock Photo He was 100 in this picture. Shoutout Bill. 31. This is Apo Whang-Od, a 106-year-old woman who is quite possibly the oldest tattoo artist on the planet: Picture Alliance / dpa/picture alliance via Getty Images Apo Whang-Od specializes in batok, an ancient form of tattoo artistry from the Philippines. Read more about her here. 32. This is Lonnie Johnson, inventor of the Super Soaker, enjoying his invention: Thomas S England / Getty Images Bless this man. 33. This is Mary Ann Bevan, a widow who was given the title of "World's Ugliest Woman" in 1920: A. R. Coster / Getty Images After the death of her husband and being diagnosed with a rare disease, Mary Ann joined circus sideshows to support her several children. You can read more about her incredible story here. 34. This is 455 pound Piet van der Zwaard AKA the "fattest man in Europe" in 1955: Arie Van Vliet / Getty Images 35. This man, Paul Karason, had his skin turn permanently blue after spending years ingesting colloidal silver: NBC Newswire / NBC Newswire / NBCUniversal via Getty Images He claimed that it cured many of his health problems, including arthritis and acid reflux. 36. This is Robert Wadlow, the tallest man who ever lived: Bettmann / Bettmann Archive Before he died, he measured 8'11" tall. 37. This is Charles Ponzi, the infamous scammer ponzi schemes got their name from: Bettmann / Bettmann Archive 38. This picture, taken by Robert Cornelius in 1839, is generally accepted as the first "selfie": Robert Cornelius / Getty Images Basically, he probably took the first self-portrait ever. Bob had to sit for 15 minutes to get this picture. 39. In 1909, pigs finally flew. Icarus the pig (right) went on a short flight with John Moore-Brabazon and finally did the impossible: / Alamy Stock Photo You'll notice Icarus emanating nothing but positive vibes. 40. This is Civil War veteran Jacob Miller, a man who was shot right between the eyes and lived for 17 more years: / Alamy Stock Photo That can't feel good. 41. This is Herman the Cat, a cat who was given the title of expert mouser aboard a US Coast Guard ship during World War II: Sherman Grinberg Library Herman, in addition to other cats aboard ships, was there to catch pests. It was a thing. Folks, do we stan Herman the Cat? 42. This is Jack the baboon, a South African baboon who worked as a signalman at a railway station in the 1800s. During his almost decade of railway work, Jack never made a single mistake: Getty He was paid "20 cents a day and half a bottle of beer weekly." RIP, Jack. 43. This is a picture of 107-year-old Civil War veteran Bill Lundy posing with a fighter jet in 1955: 914 collection / Alamy Stock Photo To be fair, there's some debate over Lundy's service in the Army, but, wow, he must have seen a whole lot in life. 44. This is what a French beach looked like in 1925: Vintage_Space / Alamy Stock Photo Imagine getting home from the beach and finding sand in your dang suit lapels. What a time. 45. This is the Dynasphere, a giant wheel vehicle invented by Dr. J. A. Purves that could go as a fast as 30 MPH: Fox Photos / Getty Images Bring back the Dynasphere, I say. I wanna ride the wheel. 46. This is Anna M. Jarvis, the inventor of Mother's Day: Bettmann / Bettmann Archive She would later regret creating the holiday, citing rapant "commercialization" that was ruining the once special day. 47. This is the Peel P50, designed by Cyril Cannell, the smallest car ever produced: Central Press / Getty Images It measured"54 inches long, 41 inches wide, and 47 inches tall." 48. This is astronaut Joseph P. Allen IV doing maintenance on a satellite in the middle of the cold, dark void of space: NASA / Getty Images Again, no thanks! 49. This is a picture of a meeting of the New York chapter of the "Fat Men's Club" circa 1930: General Photographic Agency / Getty Images According to the photo's caption, pictured here are "A Rockwitz (312lbs), comedian Eddie Carvey (250lbs), David Burns (475lbs) and F C Kupper (351lbs)." Members had to be at least 200 pounds to join. Love my big boys. 50. This is beautician Max Factor with his invention, the beauty calibrator, a device designed to show which parts of a woman's face needed more or less make-up: Camerique / Getty Images
