Phyllis Eleanor Bentley (19 November 1894 – 27 June 1977) was an English novelist.

Biography

The youngest child of a mill owner, she grew up in Halifax in the

West Riding of Yorkshire The West Riding of Yorkshire is one of three historic subdivisions of Yorkshire, England. From 1889 to 1974 the administrative county County of York, West Riding (the area under the control of West Riding County Council), abbreviated County ...

and was educated at Halifax High School for Girls and

Cheltenham Ladies' College Cheltenham Ladies' College is an independent boarding and day school for girls aged 11 to 18 in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, England. Consistently ranked as one of the top all-girls' schools nationally, the school was established in 1853 to p ...

. During

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, she worked in the munitions industry. After the war, she returned to her native Halifax where she taught English and Latin. In 1918, she published her first work, a collection of short stories entitled ''The World's Bane'', after which she published several poor-selling novels until the publication in March 1932 of her best-known work, ''Inheritance'', set against the background of the development of the textile industry in the West Riding, which received widespread critical acclaim and ran through twenty-three impressions by 1946, making her the first successful English regional novelist since

Thomas Hardy Thomas Hardy (2 June 1840 – 11 January 1928) was an English novelist and poet. A Victorian realist in the tradition of George Eliot, he was influenced both in his novels and in his poetry by Romanticism, including the poetry of William Word ...

had written his Wessex novels. Bentley was a literary celebrity in the 1930s: in 1938 she gave the first in a series of 'Manchester Celebrity Lectures' on the subject 'Writing a novel'. Two further novels followed in 1946 and 1966, forming a trilogy, and in 1967 ''

Inheritance Inheritance is the practice of receiving private property, Title (property), titles, debts, entitlements, Privilege (law), privileges, rights, and Law of obligations, obligations upon the death of an individual. The rules of inheritance differ ...

'' was filmed by

Granada TV ITV Granada, formerly known as Granada Television, is the ITV franchisee for the North West of England and Isle of Man. From 1956 to 1968 it broadcast to both the north west and Yorkshire but only on weekdays as ABC Weekend Television was it ...

, with

John Thaw John Edward Thaw, (3 January 1942 – 21 February 2002) was an English actor who appeared in a range of television, stage, and cinema roles. He starred in the television series ''Inspector Morse'' as title character Detective Chief Inspector ...

and

James Bolam James Christopher Bolam (born 16 June 1935) is an English actor. He is best known for his roles as Terry Collier in ''The Likely Lads'' and its sequel ''Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads?'', Jack Ford in ''When the Boat Comes In'', Roy Fi ...

in leading roles. In 1968, she wrote the children's novel '' Gold Pieces'', which is a fictionalised account, seen through the eyes of a twelve-year-old boy, of the

Cragg Coiners The Cragg Vale Coiners, sometimes the Yorkshire Coiners, were a band of counterfeiting, counterfeiters in England, based in Cragg Vale, near Hebden Bridge, West Riding of Yorkshire. They produced fake gold coins in the late 18th century to sup ...

, who defrauded the government by clipping the edges of gold coins to melt down and make into new coins. Bentley wrote 24 detective short stories featuring Miss Marian Phipps, beginning with "The Missing Character" for ''Woman's Home Companion'' in 1937 and continuing in ''Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine'' from the early 1950s to the early 1970s. A collection appeared in book form in 2014.''Chain of Witnesses'', Crippen & Landru Publishers
. Retrieved 8 November 2015 In 1949 she was made an honorary

Doctor of Letters Doctor of Letters (D.Litt., Litt.D., Latin: ' or ') is a terminal degree in the humanities that, depending on the country, is a higher doctorate after the Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) degree or equivalent to a higher doctorate, such as the Doctor ...

from

Leeds University , mottoeng = And knowledge will be increased , established = 1831 – Leeds School of Medicine1874 – Yorkshire College of Science1884 - Yorkshire College1887 – affiliated to the federal Victoria University1904 – University of Leeds , ...

. In 1958, she became a Fellow of the

Royal Society of Literature The Royal Society of Literature (RSL) is a learned society founded in 1820, by George IV of the United Kingdom, King George IV, to "reward literary merit and excite literary talent". A charity that represents the voice of literature in the UK, th ...

, and in 1970, she was appointed an OBE.

Selected works

*1918 ''The World's Bane'' (four allegorical stories) *1922 ''Environment'' (novel) *1923 ''Cat in the Manger'' (novel) *1928 ''The Spinner of the Years'' (novel) *1928 ''The Partnership'' (novel) *1929 ''Carr'' (novel) *1930 ''Trio'' (novel) *1932 ''Inheritance'' (novel) *1934 ''A Modern Tragedy'' (novel) *1935 ''The Whole of the Story'' (short stories) *1936 ''Freedom Farewell'' (study of the fall of Ancient Rome, her only fictional work not concerned with Yorkshire) *1941 ''Manhold'' (novel) *1942 ''The English Regional Novel'' *194
We of the West Riding
(scriptwriter) *1946 ''The Rise of Henry Morcar'' (novel) (part two of the Inheritance Trilogy) *1947 ''The Brontës'' (biography) *1950 ''Quorum'' *1953 ''The House of Moreys'' (novel) *1954 ''The Coiners'' (televised play) *1955 ''Noble in Reason'' (novel) *1958 ''Crescendo'' (novel) *1960 ''The Young Brontës'' (biography) *1962 ''O Dreams O Destinations'' (autobiography) *1966 ''A Man of His Time'' (novel) (part three of the Inheritance Trilogy) *1968 ''Gold Pieces'' (children's novel) *1969 ''Ring in the New'' (update of the Inheritance Trilogy) *1969 ''The Brontës and Their World'' (biography) *1972 ''Sheep May Safely Graze'' (novel) *1974 ''Tales of West Riding'' (short stories) *2014 ''Chain of Witnesses, The Cases of Miss Phipps'' (short detective stories, published by

Crippen & Landru Crippen & Landru Publishers is a small publisher of mystery fiction collections, based in Cincinnati, Ohio, United States. It was founded in 1994 by husband and wife Sandi and Douglas G. Greene in Norfolk, Virginia, United States, and is named af ...

) In addition to her fiction works, her non-fiction work included scholarly works on the Brontë Sisters, the English woollen industry as well as West Riding history and topography.

References

External links

* * *
Article about Phyllis Bentley: "Phyllis Bentley: novelist of Yorkshire life" by Eric Ford, first published in the ''Contemporary Review''

a short story by Phyllis Bentley, published in th

* http://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/schedules/bbctv/1954-06-24 {{DEFAULTSORT:Bentley, Phillis 1894 births 1977 deaths English women novelists People from Halifax, West Yorkshire People educated at Cheltenham Ladies' College Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature Officers of the Order of the British Empire People educated at North Halifax Grammar School 20th-century English novelists 20th-century English women writers English historical novelists Women historical novelists