MORGAN
,
CHARLES LANGBRIDGE
(‘
Menander
’;
1894
-
1958
),
drama critic, novelist, playwright
;
b.
22 Jan. 1894
, youngest child of
Sir
Charles Langbridge
Morgan
,
engineer
, and
Mary
(née
Watkins
)
his wife. His grandparents had emigrated from
Pembrokeshire
to
Australia
where his parents were married. He was trained in the
Royal Navy
from
1907
and became a
naval officer
, but he resigned in
1913
to lead a literary life, though he returned to serve in the navy during both
World Wars
. He entered
Brasenose College
,
Oxford
,
1919
, and graduated,
1921
. He then joined the staff of
The Times
, becoming well-known as its
principal drama critic
,
1926-39
. He received many honorary degrees; was one of the select foreign members of
l'Institut de France
; was elected
president
of the
English Association
,
1953-54
, and of the
International Literary Congress for
Authors
,
1954-56
. With the exception of his first two novels, he produced a continuous sequence of literary masterpieces. His novels and plays were particularly artistic, of profound significance, and of great and varied narrative power.
Portrait in a Mirror
(
1929
) was awarded the
Femina-Vie Heureuse
prize
;
The Fountain
(
1932
) the
Hawthornden prize
; and
The Voyage
(
1940
) the
James Tait Black memorial book prize
. A dramatised version of
The River Line
(
1949
) was produced at the
Edinburgh Festival
in
1952
.
He lived most of his life in
London
. Possibly his closest connections with
Wales
came through his wife,
Hilda Campbell
Vaughan
of
Builth Wells
, a
novelist
whom he m.
6 June 1923
and by whom he had a son and daughter (the
Marchioness of Anglesey
). His first play
The Flashing Stream
(
1938
) was written during a holiday spent at
Llangorse Lake
,
Breck.
Two long periods were spent in
Pembrokeshire
also, when
A breeze of morning
(
1951
) was written. He wrote a history of
Macmillans
(publishers) (
1943
); a collection of his lectures and essays was published posthumously in
The writer and his world
(
1960
). He d.
6 Feb. 1958
.
Bibliography:
-
;
-
;
-
Eiluned Lewis
,
(1967)
;
-
Henry Charles Duffin
,
(1959)
;
-
D. Crystal
,
(1994)
;
-
see also
.
Author:
