Arthur Ellis

A. E. Ellis was the pen name of Derek Lindsay (1920–2000), a British novelist and playwright. Orphaned young, he later served in the British army during the Second World War, studied at Oxford, and then spent years being treated for tuberculosis in a sanatorium in the French Alps.

That experience became the basis for The Rack (1958), his first and only published novel. The book earned strong praise and has remained his best-known work, often noted for its vivid, unsparing portrayal of illness, confinement, and endurance.

Although he continued writing, he published only a small amount beyond The Rack, including the plays Grand Manoeuvres and Seagull Rising. He remains a somewhat elusive literary figure, remembered mainly for a single remarkable novel and the life experience that gave it such force.