Morgan’s best-selling novel (248,000+ copies), A Breeze of Morning came out in 1951 preceding his final book, Challenge to Venus (1957). One of his finest short novels, A Breeze of Morning is about an adult love affair witnessed by a young boy. The novel is composed with taut competence, brilliant character portraiture and rich imagery. [A] Breeze of Morning is a study in innocence
… [Thomas] Hardy handed on the torch of the great novel to Conrad, so Conrad handed it to Morgan. –Henry Charles Duffin. The Novels and Plays of Charles Morgan, Bowes Publishers Ltd, UK. 1959 ************************************ CHARLES LANGBRIDGE MORGAN (1894-1958), drama critic, novelist, playwright. He was trained in the Royal Navy but 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 and joined the staff of The Times, becoming its principal drama critic, (1926-39). Contributed weekly articles on the London theatre to the New York Times. He received many honorary degrees; was elected president of the English Association, 1953-54, and of the International Literary Congress for Authors, 1954-56. 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. His final two novels, A Breeze of Morning and Challenge to Venus (1957), are now published again under the Rediscovered Books series of Jorge Pinto Books, Inc.