Charles Morgan letter to Miss Christian

British writer Charles Langbridge Morgan wrote several plays, eleven novels, and numerous essays.

Charles Langbridge Morgan was born on January 22, 1894, in Bromley, Kent. He was a cadet in the Royal Navy and later attended naval colleges at Osborne and Dartmouth. From 1911-1913, he served in the Atlantic and China before resigning to pursue a literary career. However, at the outbreak of World War I Morgan volunteered for re-enlistment in the Royal Navy, joining the Naval Brigade forces at Antwerp. In the fall of 1914, Morgan was taken prisoner in Holland, where during his internment Morgan began writing his first novel, The Gunroom (1919) in which he was critical of the British Navy. Morgan again volunteered for service during World War II, and he served in the British Admiralty from 1939-1944.

After studying at Oxford, beginning in 1921, Morgan worked as a drama critic for The Times of London. In 1926, he became the paper’s principal drama critic, a post he held until 1939.

In the 1930s and 1940s, when Morgan’s success as a writer was at its peak, he won three important literary prizes for his novels: the Prix Fémina-Vie Heureuse (1929); the Hawthornden Prize (1932); and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize (1940).

Morgan was one of the few foreigners to become an Académicien in the Institut de France. He also received honorary doctorates from St. Andrews University (LL.D., 1947), Université de Caen (1948), and Université de Toulouse (1948). Morgan died in London, on February 6, 1958.

Morgan, Charles.Selected Letters. Ed. Eiluned Lewis. London: Macmillan, 1967. "Charles Morgan." Contemporary Authors Online (reproduced in Biography Resource Center). http://www.galenet.com/servlet/BioRC (accessed July 2011).