The Woman in Black

The Woman In Black is a detective novel written by Edmund Clerihew Bentley. Its central character reappeared subsequently in the novel Trent's Own Case (1936) and the short-story collection Trent Intervenes (1938). The Woman in Black is actually the first novel in which gentleman sleuth Philip Trent appears. The novel is a whodunit with a place in detective fiction history because it is the first major sendup of that genre: Not only does Trent fall in love with one of the primary suspects-usually considered a no-no-he also, after painstakingly collecting all the evidence, draws all the wrong conclusions. Convinced that he has tracked down the murderer of a business tycoon who was shot in his mansion, he is told by the real perpetrator over dinner what mistakes in logical deduction he has made in trying to solve the case. On hearing what really happened, Trent vows that he will never again attempt to dabble in crime detection. Edmund Bentley (10 July 1875 - 30 March 1956) was a popular English novelist and humorist of the early twentieth century, and the inventor of the clerihew, an irregular form of humorous verse on biographical topics. Bentley was born in London and educated at St Paul's School and Merton College, Oxford. His father, John Edmund Bentley, was professionally a civil servant but was also a rugby union international having played in the first ever international match for England against Scotland in 1871. Bentley worked as a journalist on several newspapers, including the Daily Telegraph. He also worked for the imperialist weekly called The Outlook during the editorship of James Louis Garvin. His first published collection of poetry, titled Biography for Beginners (1905), popularized the clerihew form; it was followed by two other collections, More Biography (1929) and Baseless Biography (1939). His detective novel Trent's Last Case (1913) was much praised, numbering Dorothy L. Sayers among its admirers, and with its labyrinthine and mystifying plotting can be seen as the first truly modern mystery. It was adapted as a film in 1920, 1929, and 1952. The success of the work inspired him, after 23 years, to write a sequel, Trent's Own Case (1936). There was also a book of Trent short stories, Trent Intervenes. Several of his books were reprinted in the early 2000s by House of Stratus.