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The Judge's Story
1950 edition
- GenresFiction
Paperback
First published January 1, 1947
23 people want to read
About the author
Charles Morgan
114 books23 followersCharles Langbridge Morgan was a playwright and novelist of English and Welsh parentage. The main themes of his work were, as he himself put it, "Art, Love, and Death", and the relation between them. Themes of individual novels range from the paradoxes of freedom (The Voyage, The River Line), through passionate love seen from within (Portrait in a Mirror) and without (A Breeze of Morning), to the conflict of good and evil (The Judge's Story) and the enchanted boundary of death (Sparkenbroke).
Morgan was educated at the Naval Colleges of Osborne and Dartmouth and served as a midshipman in the China Fleet until 1913. On the outbreak of war he 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.
He married the Welsh novelist Hilda Vaughan in 1923.
He was the drama critic of The Times from the 1920s until 1938, and contributed weekly articles on the London theatre to the New York Times. His first play, The Flashing Stream (1938), had successful runs in London and Paris but was not well received in New York. The River Line (1952) was originally written as a novel in 1949 and concerned the activities of escaped British prisoners of war in France.
He was awarded the French 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.
While Morgan enjoyed an immense reputation during his lifetime and was awarded the 1940 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction, he was sometimes criticised for excessive seriousness, and for some time rather neglected; he once claimed that the "sense of humour by which we are ruled avoids emotion and vision and grandeur of spirit as a weevil avoids the sun. It has banished tragedy from our theatre, eloquence from our debates, glory from our years of peace, splendour from our wars..." The character Gerard Challis in Stella Gibbons's Westwood is thought to be a caricature of him.
Morgan was educated at the Naval Colleges of Osborne and Dartmouth and served as a midshipman in the China Fleet until 1913. On the outbreak of war he 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.
He married the Welsh novelist Hilda Vaughan in 1923.
He was the drama critic of The Times from the 1920s until 1938, and contributed weekly articles on the London theatre to the New York Times. His first play, The Flashing Stream (1938), had successful runs in London and Paris but was not well received in New York. The River Line (1952) was originally written as a novel in 1949 and concerned the activities of escaped British prisoners of war in France.
He was awarded the French 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.
While Morgan enjoyed an immense reputation during his lifetime and was awarded the 1940 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction, he was sometimes criticised for excessive seriousness, and for some time rather neglected; he once claimed that the "sense of humour by which we are ruled avoids emotion and vision and grandeur of spirit as a weevil avoids the sun. It has banished tragedy from our theatre, eloquence from our debates, glory from our years of peace, splendour from our wars..." The character Gerard Challis in Stella Gibbons's Westwood is thought to be a caricature of him.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
March 19, 2014
I enjoyed this book though it was bit dated. It's the story of a retired judge who must make some very difficult moral decisions to protect his ward and her husband. I found it particularly interesting because the judge's nemesis, a man named Severidge, knows that he is empty of the ability to be ethical or moral, but he is fascinated with judge's ability to hold fast. There is something of a Paradise Lost allegory that is made clear at the end.
Very enjoyable and worth reading.
Very enjoyable and worth reading.
March 23, 2025
A short novel, which I found thought-provoking. It had been lost at the back of my bookshelves and I am glad I unearthed it. It is about a retired judge, his ward Vivien, her husband and an amoral man who works his way into their respective confidence. The consequence of his immoral and sometimes fraudulent influence is agony for each of his victims but eventually, in their different ways, each calls his bluff and finds his or her own worth. This brings them, if not reward or recompense, at least a precious peace. The characters are well drawn and the story is credibly presented.
November 12, 2016
Set book at school, did not enjoy it.
April 18, 2018
3,5* Originál knižka zo slávneho antikvariátu Black Books, takže mám k nej zvláštny citovo nostalgický vzťah. Príbeh sa mi páčil, aj tú "starú" angličtinu som zvládla, no čo ma prekvapilo bolo kôľko myšlienok z nej pasovalo aj na dnešnú dobu...
November 3, 2023
Written in 1947, set in London and Westgate on the Kent coast where my great-aunt lived in the 50's-- reminded me of my grandparents. Perhaps the nearest we Brits got to a philosophical novel. A little bit of navel gazing makes a change but there is an interesting plot which kept me interested.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews