Phyllis Bentley
Phyllis Bentley was a notable English novelist and biographer born in 1894 in Halifax, Yorkshire, as the only daughter among five children. Demonstrating academic brilliance, she earned a degree from London University in 1914, despite the societal constraints placed on women at the time. Bentley's career began with teaching, but after facing challenges in that role, she transitioned to working as a volunteer in a child welfare clinic, where her political views shifted towards socialism and humanism—an awakening that would shape her writing.
In 1918, she moved to London to work during World War I and subsequently returned home to focus on her literary ambitions. Bentley published her first novel, *Environment*, in 1922, and later gained recognition for her biography of Philip Joseph Carr and her multi-generational family saga, *Inheritance*. Throughout her career, she published numerous works, including *The English Regional Novel* and *The Brontës and Their World*. Her contributions to literature earned her an honorary Doctorate from Leeds University, a fellowship with the Royal Society of Literature, and she was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1970. Bentley is primarily celebrated as a regional novelist, reflecting the complexities of life in Yorkshire through her extensive body of work.
On this Page
Subject Terms
Phyllis Bentley
Author
- Born: November 19, 1894
- Birthplace: Halifax, Yorkshire, England
- Died: June 27, 1977
- Place of death: Halifax, Yorkshire, England
Biography
Phyllis Bentley was born in 1894 in Halifax, Yorkshire, the only daughter of Joseph Edwin Bentley and Eleanor Kettlewell Bentley’s five children. She attended the Princess Mary High School for Girls in Halifax and Cheltenham Ladies’ College. At a time when women were forbidden from earning honors degrees, in 1914 Bentley received a degree from London University with outstanding grades.
Upon her return to Halifax, she found life difficult as a dependent. Against the community’s wishes, she took a “man’s job” teaching in a boy’s school but struggled to maintain discipline. Dejected, she returned home for two years before becoming a volunteer at a child welfare clinic in Halifax. While working at the clinic, she underwent the awakening that shifted her political alliance from Conservative and Church of England to socialist and humanist. This change would have a deep influence on her literary output.
In 1918, Bentley moved to London to work as a munitions clerk. She returned home after World War I determined to continue her reform efforts through the writing of fiction. Working as a library clerk to support herself, she labored evenings on her first novel, Environment (1922). In this semiautobiographical work, a young woman comes to view the small town of Hudley as a microcosm of the world, which needs empathy and compassion so it can arrive at conciliation.
Bentley continued to write and had short stories and articles published in the Yorkshire Post. In 1926, her father died, leaving Bentley to care for her mother. In 1929, her biography of Philip Joseph Carr was published to high acclaim, and it was followed three years later by Inheritance, the first part of her very successful series chronicling the Oldroyd family and their family-owned mill through several generations. In 1941, Bentley published The English Regional Novel, a survey of regional fiction from 1840 to 1940. In 1969, she penned the popular The Brontës and Their World.
In the 1930’s Bentley was a well-known writer who moved in literary circles and traveled throughout the United States giving lectures. Leeds University awarded Bentley an honorary Doctorate in 1949. She became a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1958, and was appointed OBE (Order of the British Empire) in 1970. A prolific writer, Bentley counted many volumes of short stories, historical children’s books, and detective stories, as well as book reviews and journal articles, among her literary achievements. She is most well known and highly regarded as a regional novelist.