Graham Greene's masterful novel of love and betrayal in World War II London is "undeniably a major work of art" (The New Yorker).

Maurice Bendrix, a writer in Clapham during the Blitz, develops an acquaintance with Sarah Miles, the bored, beautiful wife of a dull civil servant named Henry. Maurice claims it's to divine a character for his novel-in-progress. That's the first deception. What he really wants is Sarah, and what Sarah needs is a man with passion. So begins a series of reckless trysts doomed by Maurice's increasing romantic demands and Sarah's tortured sense of guilt. Then, after Maurice miraculously survives a bombing, Sarah ends the affair-quickly, absolutely, and without explanation. It's only when Maurice crosses paths with Sarah's husband that he discovers the fallout of their duplicity-and it's more unexpected than Maurice, Henry, or Sarah herself could have imagined.

Adapted for film in both 1956 and 1999, Greene's novel of all that inspires love-and all that poisons it-is "singularly moving and beautiful" (Evelyn Waugh).