It's here! Browse the 2024 Penguin Christmas gift guide
Travels With My Aunt

Travels With My Aunt

Summary

'The only book I have ever written just for the fun of it' Graham Greene

Greene proves a wonderful storyteller in this hilarious tale of the eccentricity of families and the pomposity of the middle class.

Henry Pulling, a retired bank manager, meets his septuagenarian Aunt Augusta for the first time in over fifty years at what he supposes to be his mother's funeral. Soon after, she persuades Henry to abandon Southwood, his dahlias and the Major next door to travel her way, Brighton, Paris, Istanbul, Paraguay. Through Aunt Augusta, a veteran of Europe's hotel bedrooms, Henry joins a shiftless, twilight society: mixing with hippies, war criminals, CIA men; smoking pot, breaking all the currency regulations and eventually coming alive after a dull suburban life.

In Travels With My Aunt Graham Greene not only gives us intoxicating entertainment but also confronts us with some of the most perplexing of human dilemmas.

Reviews

  • The only book I have ever written just for the fun of it
    Graham Greene

About the author

Graham Greene

Graham Greene was born in 1904. He worked as a journalist and critic, and in 1940 became literary editor of the Spectator. He was later employed by the Foreign Office. As well as his many novels, Graham Greene wrote several collections of short stories, four travel books, six plays, three books of autobiography, two of biography and four books for children. He also wrote hundreds of essays, and film and book reviews. Graham Greene was a member of the Order of Merit and a Companion of Honour. He died in April 1991.
Learn More

Sign up to the Penguin Newsletter

For the latest books, recommendations, author interviews and more