Robert Hugh Benson

Robert Hugh Benson (1871-1914) was an English priest who first served in the Church of England and later in the Catholic Church, and also a prolific novelist. He came from a notable literary family: he was the youngest son of Edward White Benson, Archbishop of Canterbury, and the younger brother of E. F. Benson and A. C. Benson. He matters because his large output of fiction was closely tied to a religious journey that caused a public stir in England.

After studying at Cambridge and being ordained in the Church of England in 1895, he worked in Hackney Wick and Kemsing before joining the Community of the Resurrection at Mirfield in 1897. His father's sudden death in 1896 was followed by growing doubts about the Church of England, and he was received into the Catholic Church in 1903, becoming a priest the following year. His writing ranged across horror, science fiction, historical novels, children's books and apologetics. The best known is Lord of the World (1907), one of the first modern dystopias, in which the Catholic Church stands alone against a secular world.