Concluding (British Literature) [Paperback]

Henry Green (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 2000 | Series: British Literature

-- On an ordinary day at a girl's school, two students are reported missing. The subsequent search involves the neighboring widower Old Mr. Rock and his granddaughter and her fiance, and uncovers the hidden lusts, ambitions, suspicions and jealousies that lie beneath the school's placid surface.
-- Admired in his lifetime by W. H. Auden, Christopher Isherwood, Eudora Welty, Anthony Burgess, and Rebecca West, among others, Henry Green wrote nine novels, including Loving, Caught, and Blindness. He is also the author of a memoir, Pack My Bags, and Surviving, a book of uncollected writings.
-- Green considered Concluding to be his finest work.
-- First published in the U.S. by Viking (1948), most recent paperback by University of Chicago (1985).

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Green's 1948 novel won high praise from the likes of Anthony Burgess and John Updike. The obtuse plot offers up an odd string of characters and events at a girls' school when two of the students go missing.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About the Author

Henry Green is the pen name of Henry Vincent Yorke (1905-1973). His nine novels, from Blindness (1926) to Doting (1952), were all first published by Leonard and Virginia Woolf's Hogarth Press.

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 213 pages
• Publisher: Dalkey Archive Press; 1st Dalkey Archive ed edition (October 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1564782530
• ISBN-13: 978-1564782533
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #591,093 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Extraordinary and idiosyncratic, February 24, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Concluding (British Literature) (Paperback)

Henry Green's Concluding is an extraordinary novel. Remarkably idiosyncratic, it is a work that may not appeal to everybody equally. Green humorously, and tragically, presents the common misunderstandings that language and our private emotions provoke. Although natural beauty and light's dazzling improvisations illuminate the novel, the recurrent theme of what is secret, underground and buried offers a disturbing and unsettling contrast. Passions bloom abruptly through the dryness and formality of a community stifled by Rules and Directives. A striking example of Green's powers is the lunch episode in which the manipulative Principal Miss Edge feels a missing girl's corpse is buried underneath the azaleas and rhododendrons behind her table. This book deserves to be read and reread.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars another masterpiece, March 25, 2009

By 

wordtron (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Concluding (British Literature) (Paperback)

another brilliant beauty by green, this one more enigmatic and mysterious than NOTHING or DOTING. set in a sort of training school for girls, the story circles around the disappearance of two girls; the cross-purposes between the school's two principals and a mr. rock who lives in a cottage on the school grounds; and also between mr. rock's daughter recovering from a breakdown and her romance with one of the school's instructors. all in the shadow of an impending school dance. what green nails as always is the way people speak and totally misunderstand each other, all the while creating a seamless setting with his lyrical, idiosyncratic prose. you end up feeling like you understand a little more the inexplicable dance of life.

7 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars HENRY GREEN WAS BRILLIANT!!!!, July 8, 1998

By 

Jason A. Newman (USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Concluding (Hardcover)

If you love human beings and/or are one, you will love Henry Green's books! REAL stories, told in VERY imaginative ways, about REAL people expressing REAL EMOTION. Check out: Living, Loving, Nothing, Party Going, Caught, Doting, Blindness, Back, and Pack My Bag; A Self-Portrait -- all by Green!!!