Stamboul Train
First edition
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| Author | Graham Greene |
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| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Novel (thrillerl) |
| Publisher | William Heinemann |
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Publication date
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1932 |
| Media type | Hardcover(first edition) |
| Pages | 307 (first edition) |
Stamboul Train (1932) is the second significant novel by Graham Greene. Set on an "Orient Express" train, that ran from Ostend, Belgium to Istanbul, Turkey, the book was renamed Orient Express, when it was published in the United States. Greene in fact wrote three books before this one, but two were unsuccessful and he later disowned them, The Name of Action (1930) and Rumour at Nightfall (1932). Stamboul Train (1932) was Greene's first true success and it was taken on by the Book Society and in 1934 adapted as the film Orient Express.
The novel is one of a number of works which the author classed as an "entertainment" so as to distinguish them from his more serious literary works. In the introduction to the 1974 edition Greene wrote:
The novel focuses on the lives of individuals aboard the train as it makes a three-day journey from Ostend to Istanbul (though Greene uses the old name for the city, Constantinople). The novel opens on board the ferry, on which several of the novel's major characters have travelled from England. Mabel Warren and Janet Pardoe join the train in Cologne, Germany, and Josef Grünlich, joins in Vienna, Austria. Although these characters are traveling for different purposes, their lives are intertwined in the course of the journey. There are other scenes off the train, in Cologne, Vienna, Subotica, Serbia, and Istanbul, as well as Myatt's high-speed journey by car through the Serbian countryside to and from the railway station at Subotica.
A major part of the plot focusses on Carleton Myatt, a shrewd and practical businessman who trades in currants and has business interests in Turkey. Myatt is concerned that his firm's agent in Turkey, Eckerman has been cheating him. A theme of the novel is the anti-Semitism Myatt faces from many people, on and off the train, as he travels through pre-World War II Europe. Because he feels sorry for the sick dancer Coral Musker, who is travelling 2nd class, he buys her a 1st class ticket. Musker is grateful and she falls in love with him. She then spends a night with him in his compartment during which, to his surprise, he discovers that she is a virgin. After she disappears from the train he travels back to Subotica to rescue her, but fails, and barely escapes, after rescuing the crook Grünlich, under gun fire.
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