SOURCE: "Norman Douglas," in Collected Essays, The Bodley Head, 1969, pp. 362-65.

Greene was one of the most popular and respected authors of the twentieth century. A prolific novelist, dramatist, critic, and essayist, he is perhaps best known for the novels Brighton Rock (1938), The Power and the Glory (1940), and The Third Man (1950). In the following essay, originally published in 1952, he fondly recalls Douglas's life and discusses what South Wind meant to his generation of writers.

In those last years you would always find him between six and dinner-time in the Café Vittoria, unfashionably tucked away behind the Piazza. Through the shabby windows one stared across at Naples—one could go only a few steps further without tumbling off the island altogether. Crouched over an aperitif (too often in the last years almost unalcoholic), his fingers knotted with rheumatism, squawking his 'Giorgio, Giorgio' to summon the devoted waiter who could...