E.C. Bentley (1875-1956) was an English novelist. The son of a civil servant and international rugby player, Bentley was raised in London and attended the prestigious St Paul's School before attending Merton College, Oxford. In his professional career as a journalist, he worked for several newspapers, including the Daily Telegraph and The Outlook. In his first published book of poems, Biography for Beginners (1905), he invented the clerihew, a form of rhyming light verse consisting of four lines satirizing the biography of its subject. Popularized by Bentley, the form would be used by numerous writers, including G.K. Chesterton and W.H. Auden. In addition to two subsequent collections of poetry-More Biography (1929) and Baseless Biography (1939)-Bentley published the successful detective novel Trent's Last Case (1913). The novel, which has been adapted three times for the cinema, earned the acclaim of such writers as Dorothy L. Sayers, and was followed by a sequel and a collection of short stories involving its main character. Bentley served for a number of years as president of the Detection Club, a society of British mystery writers that included Sayers, Chesterton, Agatha Christie, and Hugh Walpole, among others. Recognized as a central figure for twentieth century detective fiction, Bentley has inspired generations of writers and readers.
