Edmund Clerihew Bentley (1875-1956), was a popular English novelist and humourist of the early twentieth century, and the inventor of the clerihew, an irregular form of humourous verse on biographical topics. He was born in London, and educated at St Paul's School and Merton College, Oxford. Bentley worked as a journalist on several newspapers, including the Daily Telegraph. His first published collection of poetry, titled Biography for Beginners (1905), popularised the clerihew form; it was followed by two other collections, in 1929 and 1939. His detective novel, Trent's Last Case (American title: The Woman in Black) (1913), was much praised, numbering Dorothy L. Sayers among its admirers, and with its labyrinthine and mystifying plotting it can be seen as the first truly modern mystery. The success of the work inspired him, after 23 years, to write a sequel, Trent's Own Case (1936). --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.