Bentley was born in 1875 and educated at St Paul's School in London, where he met and became friends with famed critic and author G K Chesterton. Bentley began a long career in journalism in 1902, serving on the editorial staff of the Daily News for 10 years and the Daily Telegraph for another twenty. He wrote Biography for Beginners (using the alias E Clerihew) in 1905, which was a collection of four-line nonsense verse dubbed Clerihews (in his honor), which became as popular as the limerick form. In 1929 and 1939, two more volumes were published. Trent's Final Case (1913), Bentley's masterpiece, was created in irritation at Sherlock Holmes' infallibility and heralded the start of a new age in detective fiction.

Indeed, it has long been considered as the first really modern mystery and the beginning of the 'Golden Era of Crime Fiction.' Trent's Own Case, the sequel, didn't come out for another twenty-three years, and was subsequently followed by Trent Intervenes, a Read More chevron_right

Bentley was born in 1875 and educated at St Paul's School in London, where he met and became friends with famed critic and author G K Chesterton. Bentley began a long career in journalism in 1902, serving on the editorial staff of the Daily News for 10 years and the Daily Telegraph for another twenty. He wrote Biography for Beginners (using the alias E Clerihew) in 1905, which was a collection of four-line nonsense verse dubbed Clerihews (in his honor), which became as popular as the limerick form. In 1929 and 1939, two more volumes were published. Trent's Final Case (1913), Bentley's masterpiece, was created in irritation at Sherlock Holmes' infallibility and heralded the start of a new age in detective fiction.

Indeed, it has long been considered as the first really modern mystery and the beginning of the 'Golden Era of Crime Fiction.' Trent's Own Case, the sequel, didn't come out for another twenty-three years, and was subsequently followed by Trent Intervenes, a collection of short stories. Agatha Christie called Trent's Final Case one of the three best detective stories ever written, and Dorothy L Sayers said, It is the one detective story of the twenty-first century that I am positive will go down to posterity as a classic. It's a work of art.

chevron_left Read Less