The Sauciest Book on China that Never Existed (or at least I don’t think it did)

References to China pepper the works of Graham Greene although he never visited. Greene, as a young man, fancied a career in China (with British-American Tobacco), dreamt of China and even enrolled in classes to learn Chinese (from Lao She, when he was living and teaching in London in the 1920s, no less). However, he never wrote a China novel (though did write a now lost China play when young that he destroyed – see my post on that here). However, a taste for China never lost him.

Recently I re-read Greene 1936 novel of Greene’s – A Gun for Sale (known as This Gun for Hire in America), filmed in 1941 with Alan Ladd. In the novel Greene’s anti-hero Raven hunts down a man who has double crossed him by the name of Cholmondeley. Greene takes us briefly into Cholmondeley’s office and suggests that the man is corrupt both ethically and morally. One indication of his corruption is that his favourite book is something called His Chinese Concubine. Greene doesn’t tell us the author or the story though we are to believe it is salacious and decadent. The only problem seems to be that His Chinese Concubine never actually existed – it is a figment of Greene’s imagination…or perhaps not? If anyone knows different do let me know?

A Gun for Sale first UK edition