Charles S. (Charles Sylvester) Bentley

Born in 1871, Charles S. Bentley — Charles Sylvester Bentley — was an American physician and author. Reliable catalog and reference sources identify him as a doctor as well as the writer of The Fifth of November: A Romance of the Stuarts, published in 1898.

Biographical records connected with his death indicate that he was born in Elizabeth, New Jersey, earned his M.D. at Columbia University in 1896, and was later known in Plattsburgh, New York, where he died in 1933 after a long illness. Those same records suggest he was well established in the medical profession even as his surviving literary reputation rests mainly on his historical novel.

A few specialist sources also connect him with shell collecting and conchological interests, hinting at a wider intellectual curiosity beyond medicine and fiction. Though not a widely known novelist today, he stands out as one of those late-19th-century writers whose professional life and imaginative work took very different but equally serious paths.