Charles Moreton

Charles Moreton is the credited author of The Maid and the Magpie, an early 1800s tale for young readers that was published in London. Surviving catalog and digitized editions connect the name mainly with that work, which has helped keep it in circulation long after its original publication.

Very little biographical information about Moreton appears to be firmly documented in widely accessible sources. Because the record is so thin, it is safest to describe Moreton as a little-known author from the early 19th century whose reputation rests chiefly on The Maid and the Magpie.

That obscurity can be part of the interest: Moreton belongs to the large group of writers whose books outlasted the details of their lives, leaving modern readers to meet them first through the stories they wrote.