Editing Graham Greene (section)

== Early years (1904–1922) ==
[[File:St. John’s boarding house Berkhamsted 1.jpg|left|thumb|Greene was born in [[Berkhamsted School]] where his father taught.]]
[[File:Graham Greene's Birthplace blue plaque crop.jpg|thumb|upright|Graham Greene's birthplace blue plaque]]
Henry Graham Greene was born in 1904 in St John's House, a [[Boarding school|boarding house]] of [[Berkhamsted School]], Hertfordshire, where his father was house master.<ref name=berkhamsted-tour>{{cite book|last=Cook|first=John|title=A Glimpse of our History: a short guided tour of Berkhamsted|year=2009|publisher=Berkhamsted Town Council|url=http://www.berkhamsted.gov.uk/download/Heritage%20Leaflet.pdf|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110927033250/http://www.berkhamsted.gov.uk/download/Heritage%20Leaflet.pdf|archive-date=27 September 2011}}</ref> He was the fourth of six children; his younger brother, [[Hugh Greene|Hugh]], became [[Director-General of the BBC]],<ref name="oxforddnb.com" /> and his elder brother, [[Raymond Greene|Raymond]], an eminent physician and mountaineer.<ref name="timesobit" />

His parents, Charles Henry Greene and Marion Raymond Greene, were [[cousin marriage|first cousins]], both members of a large, influential family that included the owners of [[Greene King Brewery]], bankers, and statesmen;{{sfn|Iyer|2012|p=8}} his grandmother Jane Wilson was first cousin to [[Robert Louis Stevenson]].<ref name="oxforddnb.com" />

Charles Greene was second master at Berkhamsted School, where the headmaster was [[Thomas Charles Fry|Dr Thomas Fry]], who was married to Charles' cousin.{{sfn|Sherry|1990|pp=3-4}} Another cousin was the [[right-wing]] [[pacifist]] [[Ben Greene]], whose politics led to his [[internment]] during [[World War II]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Lewis |first=Jeremy |year=2010 |title=Shades of Greene: One Generation of an English Family |location=London |url=https://archive.org/details/shadesofgreeneon0000lewi_z4l8 |url-access=registration |publisher=[[Jonathan Cape]] |pages=216–233, 496–497 |isbn=978-0224079211}}</ref>

In his childhood, Greene spent his summers at [[Harston#Harston House|Harston House]], the [[Cambridgeshire]] home of his uncle, Sir [[William Graham Greene|Graham Greene]].{{sfn|Greene|1971|pp=23-24}}{{sfn|Sherry|1990|p=52}} In Greene's description of his childhood, he describes his learning to read there: "It was at Harston I quite suddenly found that I could read—the book was ''Dixon Brett, Detective''. I didn't want anyone to know of my discovery, so I read only in secret, in a remote attic, but my mother must have spotted what I was at all the same, for she gave me Ballantyne's ''[[The Coral Island|Coral Island]]'' for the train journey home—always an interminable journey with the long wait between trains at [[Bletchley railway station|Bletchley]]..."{{sfn|Greene|1971|pp=24-25}}

In 1910, Charles Greene succeeded Dr Fry as headmaster of Berkhamsted. Graham also attended the school as a boarder. Bullied and profoundly depressed, he made several suicide attempts, including, as he wrote in his autobiography, by [[Russian roulette]] and by taking aspirin before going swimming in the school pool. In 1920, aged 16, in what was a radical step for the time, he was sent for [[psychoanalysis]] for six months in London, afterwards returning to school as a day student.{{sfn|Iyer|2012|p=9}} School friends included the journalist [[Claud Cockburn]] and the historian [[Peter Quennell]].{{sfn|Sherry|1990|p=110}}

Greene contributed several stories to the school magazine,{{sfn|Sherry|1990|pp=113-114}} one of which was published by a London evening newspaper{{sfn|Greene|1971|p=110}} in January 1921.

===Oxford University===
He attended [[Balliol College, Oxford]], to study history. During 1922 Greene was for a short time a member of the [[Communist Party of Great Britain]], and sought an invitation to the new [[Soviet Union]], of which nothing came.<ref name="G">{{cite web|url=http://www.notablebiographies.com/Gi-He/Greene-Graham.html|title=Graham Greene Biography|work=notablebiographies.com|access-date=11 March 2016}}</ref> In 1925, while he was an undergraduate at Balliol, his first work, a poorly received volume of poetry titled ''Babbling April'', was published.<ref name="G" />

Greene had periodic bouts of depression while at Oxford, and largely kept to himself.<ref name="oxforddnb.com">Michael Shelden, 'Greene, (Henry) Graham (1904–1991)', ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Oct 2008 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/40460, accessed 15 May 2011]</ref> Of Greene's time at Oxford, his contemporary [[Evelyn Waugh]] noted that: "Graham Greene looked down on us (and perhaps all undergraduates) as childish and ostentatious. He certainly shared in none of our revelry."<ref name="oxforddnb.com" /> He graduated in 1925 with a [[British undergraduate degree classification|second-class degree]] in history.<ref name="G" />