Call Number:

F0949

Repository:

University of Delaware Library Special Collections

Extent:

1 item (2 pages)

Language:

English

Preferred Citation:

MSS 0099, F0949, Charles Morgan letter to Reverend R. Barrett, Special Collections, University of Delaware Library, Newark, Delaware.

Date:

1924 june 10 (inclusive)

Creator:

Morgan, Charles, 1894-1958

Form:

correspondence

Abstract:

British author Charles Morgan wrote in reply to Reverend Robert Barrett’s most recent letter, responding to Barrett's ideas of fiction.

British writer Charles Langbridge Morgan (1894-1958) 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 to 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 reenlistment in the Royal Navy, joining the Naval Brigade forces at Antwerp. In the fall of 1914, Morgan was taken prisoner in Holland. During his internment, he began writing his first novel,

The Gunroom (1919), in which he was critical of the British Navy. Though critical of the Royal Navy, Morgan again volunteered for service during World War II, and he served in the British Admiralty from 1939 to 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.

Reverend R. Barrett was probably Robert Barrett who was the Vicar of Barnham, in Sussex, England.

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 November 2013).Morgan, Charles.Selected Letters. Ed. Eiluned Lewis. London: Macmillan, 1967.Biographical information also derived from the letter.

British author Charles Morgan wrote in reply to Reverend Robert Barrett’s most recent letter, responding to Barrett's ideas of fiction.

Morgan informed Barrett that the ideas in his letter had formed the basis of a number of discussions with his wife, and also with English writer, Sir Compton MacKenzie (1883-1972), whom he had met in Capri. He noted that although the letter reached him at Capri, he was now in London, awaiting proofs from Heinemann for his new novel, which was to be published in the fall. This novel was probably

My Name Is Legion, which was published by Heinemann in 1925.