W. F. Morris
Walter Frederick Morris (31 May 1892–1975) was an English novelist, best known for his mystery novel, Bretherton (1929), set in World War I. Critic A.C. Ward praised this as "an adventure-mystery war-novel with an admirably ingenious and leak-proof plot. This book combines a brilliant exercise of creative imagination with a remarkable ability to reproduce, vividly, first-hand experiences, and there is one brief battle-scene…which is memorable.” (The Nineteen-Twenties, Literature and Ideas in the Post-War Decade, 1930, pp 163–4). Spy novelist Eric Ambler named the book as one of his top five spy stories (in the Afterword to the 1952 edition of his Epitaph for a Spy).[1]
Eric Ambler called Morris's G. B. one of the five best spy novels of all time.[2]
Life
Morris was born in Norwich. He served with the 13th Cycle Battalion of the Norfolk Regiment during World War I, reaching the acting rank of Major by the age of 27, and was awarded the Military Cross.[3]
Works
- Veteran Youth (as Corney Morris, 1925 Hodder & Stoughton)
- The British Empire (1927)
- Bretherton:Khaki or Field Grey? (1929)
- Behind the Lines (1930 Geoffrey Bles). Published in USA as The Strange Case of Gunner Rawley (1930 Dodd,Mead)
- Pagan (1931 Geoffrey Bles)[4]
- The Hold-up (1933 Geoffrey Bles)
- Something to His Advantage (1935 Geoffrey Bles)
- Goring's First Case (as Peter Kippax, 1936 Michael Joseph)
- No Turning Back (1937 Michael Joseph)
- The Channel Mystery (1939)
References
- ↑ Mark Valentine - "Collecting the First World War Novels of Major Morris", Book and Magazine Collector, June 2010
- ↑ Michael Dirda, Browsings: A Year of Reading, Collecting, and Living with Books, Pegasus Books, 2015. Accessed 19 August 2015
- ↑ London Gazette edition 31711 p16118
- ↑ The Tablet, 24 October 1931, p 10. Accessed 19 August 2015