C. E. Montague

Charles Edward Montague (1867–1928) was a distinguished English journalist, novelist, and critic. He served as a leader writer for the Manchester Guardian under C. P. Scott, where he honed a lucid, principled style. During World War I, Montague enlisted despite being over forty, serving on the Western Front. This experience profoundly shaped his literary legacy. His most famous work, Disenchantment (1922), is a seminal war memoir that movingly chronicles the shift from patriotic idealism to bitter disillusionment. Montague also wrote novels such as A Hind Let Loose and Rough Justice, and was a noted essayist. His clear-eyed, humane prose influenced later war literature, and Disenchantment remains a key text in understanding the psychological aftermath of the Great War.