Bentley, Edmund Clerihew

(1875-1956)

   London-born and educated at Merton College, Oxford, he studied law but abandoned it for journalism, which he practiced for most of his life. By the end of 1899 he was a regular contributor to the Speaker, the Liberal weekly. He is remembered as the inventor of the clerihew, a light verse in lines usually of varying length, rhyming aabb, and usually dealing with a person named in the initial rhyme. In addition to his poetry, he is the author of Trent's Last Case (1913), published as one of Nelson's twoshilling novels, a classic detective story that challenges the infallibility of Sherlock Holmes and is said to have heralded the demise of that famous detective. Some of his clerihews: "'Dear me!' exclaimed Homer," "After dinner Erasmus," "Ballade of Liquid Refreshment," "Dr. Clifford," "George III," "J.S. Mill," "Liszt," "'No, sir,' said General Sherman," "The Art of Biography," "The Intrepid Ricardo," "The Younger Van Eyck," "Wynkyn de Worde."

   Sources: Dictionary of National Biography. Electronic Edition 1.1. Oxford University Press, 1997. Encyclopædia Britannica Ultimate Reference Suite DVD, 2006. The Columbia Granger's Index to Poetry. 11th ed. The Columbia Granger's World of Poetry, Columbia University Press, 2005 (http://www.columbiagrangers.org). The Faber Book of Comic Verse. Michael Roberts, and Janet Adam Smith, ed. Faber & Faber, 1978. The National Portrait Gallery (www. npg.org.uk). The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 6th edition. Margaret Drabble, ed. Oxford University Press, 2000.