Product Description

Edmund Clerihew Bentley published a volume of nonsense verse consisting of a series of four-liners designed to poke fun at distinguished personalities. Illustrated by Bentley's lifelong friend, eminent critic and author G K Chesterton, they were known as 'clerihews' and became as popular as the limerick form. In Complete Clerihews the entire collection is presented, with original illustrations. The assortment of over 100 participants includes: Karl Marx, Jane Austen, Mussolini, Henry VIII, Noel Coward, Tennyson, Dante, Leonardo Da Vinci, Dorothy Sayers, Aeschylus, Keats, President Roosevelt, Cleopatra and Lewis Carroll.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4283948 in Books
• Published on: 2001-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 182 pages

About the Author
E.C. Bentley was born in 1875 and educated at St Paul's School, London, where he met eminent critic and author G K Chesterton, who became his closest friend. Bentley began a lifelong career in journalism in 1902, working for ten years on the editorial staff of the Daily News and for a further twenty years on the Daily Telegraph. In 1905, he published Biography for Beginners (under the pseudonym E Clerihew), which was a volume of nonsense verse consisting of four-lines and called 'clerihews' (in his honour), which became as popular as the limerick form. Two further volumes followed in 1929 and 1939. Bentley's masterpiece, Trent's Last Case (1913), was written in exasperation at the infallibility of Sherlock Holmes and marked the beginning of a new era in detective fiction. Indeed, it has long been hailed as marking the start of the 'Golden Age of Crime Fiction' and the first truly modern mystery. The sequel, Trent's Own Case, did not appear for a further twenty three years and this was then followed by a book of short stories; Trent Intervenes. Of Trent's Last Case Agatha Christie wrote: 'One of the three bes detective stories ever written', whilst Dorothy L Sayers stated 'It is the one detective story of the present century which I am certain will go down to posterity as a classic. It is a masterpiece'.