Charles L. Morgan

Charles Langbridge Morgan was born on 22^nd January 1894 at Bromley, Kent. He was the youngest of four children of Sir Charles Langbridge Morgan, a distinguished railway civil engineer, and Mary (née Watkins). His mother died in 1907 and, that same year, Charles entered the Royal Navy. He was educated at Osborne and Dartmouth, where he became Chief Cadet Captain.

Charles passed out from Dartmouth in the first class and joined the crew of the cruiser HMS Cumberland, serving in the Mediterranean and home waters. As a midshipman he served for six months aboard HMS Good Hope in the Atlantic, and subsequently aboard HMS Monmouth, stationed in China, before resigning from the Navy in 1914.

Charles was to enter Brasenose College, Oxford University, but the outbreak of war saw him commissioned as a Sub-Lieutenant in the Hawke Battalion on 24^th August 1914. As one of the group of men who entered Holland during the retreat from Antwerp, he was interned at Groningen, before being moved with his fellow officers to the secure fort at Bodegraven in 1915.

At Bodegraven Charles began contributing verse and prose to English newspapers, while also starting work on his first book, The Gunroom. This novel drew directly upon his experience of the relentless hazing he had suffered aboard HMS Good Hope. After approximately twelve months at Bodegraven he was moved to live on the estate of Roosendaal Castle.

In late 1917 Charles was returning to England for home leave when his ship was mined and sank. He lost all his possessions, including the manuscript of his novel. He was on home leave when the Armistice was signed and did not return to Holland. In early January 1919 he was ordered to Haslar Hospital, where he was diagnosed as suffering from neurasthenia (nervous exhaustion). He was discharged from Haslar at the end of the month and was invalided on 15^th February. During his internment he had been granted the rank of Lieutenant, which he retained on leaving the service. He was then finally able to enter Brasenose, reading History.

The year 1919 also saw the publication of Charles’ novel The Gunroom. It was written in order to make known the conditions in which midshipmen lived, and the cruelty to which they were subjected systematically as an unofficial but condoned part of their training. A biographical note in a later book wrote of this novel:

 attracted considerable attention. Certain chapters in it were fiercely debated inside and outside the Navy and the book sold fast. Then, one day, when it was in the full tide of success, its sale suddenly and mysteriously stopped. It was not officially banned. But bookshops which had been displaying it, were found to be stocking it no longer. Assistants who had sold it the day before, now shook their heads and said that they had never heard of it. Of this there has never been an open explanation.

At Oxford Charles became President of the Dramatic Society, where he met the dramatic critic of The Times, A. B. Walkley. After leaving Oxford he worked briefly in a publishing office before Walkley secured him a position on the editorial staff of The Times in 1921. In 1926, following Walkley’s death, Charles became the newspaper’s chief theatre critic.

Charles developed a romantic interest in Mary Mond, the daughter of Alfred Mond, who had been created a baronet in 1910. Her mother, Violet, disapproved of the match and sent her daughter to India. Charles subsequently met the Welsh novelist Hilda Campbell Vaughan, two years his senior, and they married in 1923. Living in Chelsea, they had two children: Elizabeth Shirley (1924) and Roger (1926).

The year 1925 saw the publication of Charles’ next novel, My Name is Legion, in which he developed a distinctive style that stood apart from the main literary trends of the time. In 1929 he achieved his first major literary success with Portrait in a Mirror, which won the Prix Femina–Vie Heureuse. Following this success the family moved to Holland Park. Even greater acclaim followed in 1932 with the publication of The Fountain, a philosophical romantic novel drawing on his experiences of internment in Holland, which won the prestigious Hawthornden Prize. In 1934 the book was adapted into a Hollywood film.

Charles’ work was more popular in the United States and France than in his native country, and in 1936 he was appointed an Officer of the Légion d’honneur. Further novels followed. In 1938 he published his first play The Flashing Stream, and also began writing shorter novels.

During the Second World War Charles served with the Admiralty’s Naval Intelligence. He continued to write, particularly with regard to France, for whose troubles he had developed a deep affection. In 1945, following the publication of his Ode to France, he was promoted within the order of the Légion d’honneur, and in 1949 he was elected a member of the Institut de France. His post-war writing showed a preoccupation with totalitarianism, although his work was never wholly dominated by these concerns.

Charles died of a bronchial ailment at his home in Campden Hill Square on 6^th February 1958. He is buried in Gunnersbury Cemetery, West London.