The Gunroom

Charles Langbridge Morgan (22 January 1894 - 6 February 1958), was an English-born playwright and novelist of English and Welsh parentage. The main themes of his work were romantic love, mysticism, and a longing for the timeless and sublime through telling the stories of idealistic and artistic protagonists. Morgan was born in Bromley, Kent. He was educated at the Naval Colleges of Osborne and Dartmouth and served as a midshipman in the China Fleet until 1913, when he returned to England to take the entrance examinations for Oxford. On the outbreak of war he rejoined the navy but was sent with Churchill's Naval Division to the defence of Antwerp. He was interned in Holland which provided the setting for his best-selling novel The Fountain. His first play, The Flashing Stream (1938), had successful runs in London and Paris. The River Line (1952) was originally written as a novel in 1949 and concerned the activities of escaped British prisoners of war in France during World War II. He was awarded the Legion of Honour in 1936, a promotion in 1945, and was elected a member of the Institut de France in 1949. From 1953 he was the president of International PEN.