Charles Raymond Bell MortimerCBE (25 April 1895 – 9 January 1980), who wrote under the nameRaymond Mortimer, was a British writer on art and literature, known mostly as a critic andliterary editor.

He was born inKnightsbridge, London, and brought up inRedhill, Surrey. He was educated atMalvern College andBalliol College, Oxford, which he entered in 1913 to read history. His studies were interrupted by service in a hospital in France from 1915 and then work in the Foreign Office. He did not complete his degree.

In the 1920s, he was in Paris, writing fiction. A Francophile, Mortimer broke down in tears when he heard on 21 June 1940 that France had signed an armistice with Germany, saying it was as if half of England had just fallen into the sea.^[1] He later became literary editor of theNew Statesman, worked at the BBC and in liaison with theFree French in World War II, and subsequently as a book reviewer forThe Sunday Times. He was appointed a Commander of theOrder of the British Empire (CBE) in the1955 Birthday Honours.

He was a friend of the poet and novelistVita Sackville-West, and was involved in a long-term relationship with her husband, the author and British diplomatHarold Nicolson. Mortimer joined the three owners ofLong Crichel House in Dorset, friendsEdward Sackville West,Desmond Shawe-Taylor andEardley Knollys, as one of the residents, after World War II.^[2] There they heldsalons, entertaining some of the great literary and artistic figures of the day, includingE.M. Forster,Nancy Mitford,Benjamin Britten,Laurie Lee,Ben Nicolson andGraham Greene.^[3]

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