Edric Cecil Mornington Roberts was born in Nottingham, 18 May 1892, the son of John Godber Roberts and Elizabeth Mary Roberts (née Woolfitt). He was educated at Mundella Grammar School in Nottingham. On leaving school, he worked as a clerk to a firm of solicitors and then in the weights and measures office of the Corporation of Nottingham, 1908-15. After a brief period working as a teacher at a boys' preparatory school at Shardlow Hall, he began a career in journalism as a 'gentleman pupil' at the Nottingham Journal, 1915; moving to become a literary and drama critic and later war correspondent at the Liverpool Post, 1915-18; and returning as editor to the Nottingham Journal, 1920-5. In 1922, he stood unsuccessfully as the prospective Parliamentary candidate for the Liberal Party in Nottingham (Eastern Division). He was a prolific published author of poems, novels, travel writing, and five volumes of memoir and travelled widely, undertaking lecture tours of the United States and Canada, 1920-39. He made a living as a writer, lecturer and freelance literary journalist, settling in London, 1927-30, and then at Pilgrim Cottage in Henley-on-Thames, 1930-50. During the war, he worked as a member of the British mission to the United States, 1940-6. He was made a freeman of the City of Nottingham in 1965.

In 1950, he moved to Italy, living first at Alassio and later in the Grand Hotel in Rome, where he died on 20 December 1976.