In the introduction to his interview with Green in the "Paris Review" Terry Southern wrote: "An ancient trade compliment, to an author whose technique is highly developed, has been to call him a 'writer's writer'; Henry Green has been referred to as a 'writer's writer's writer.'" Green was always more popular among fellow authors than with the general public; none of his books sold more than 10,000 copies, although he was more widely read in the 1940s, when "Loving" appeared briefly on US best-seller lists. He was admired in his lifetime by W. H. Auden, Christopher Isherwood, Eudora Welty, Anthony Burgess, Evelyn Waugh (who knew him well), and Rebecca West. The last-named said of him, "He was a truly original writer, his prose was fresh minted, he drove his bloodless scalpel inches deeper into the brain and heart, none of it had been said before. He is nearly forgotten." V. S. Pritchett called Green "the most gifted prose writer of his generation". In a 1952 profile of Green published by "Life", W. H. Auden was quoted as saying that Henry Green was "the best English novelist alive".