author
Cyril Bennett
A shadowy Victorian novelist with just two known books to his name, this author remains almost entirely elusive. That air of mystery only adds to the appeal of fiction that has managed to outlive its maker.
1 Audiobook
The modern malady : or, Sufferers from "nerves"
by Cyril Bennett
About the author
Very little can be confirmed about this late-19th-century novelist beyond the books themselves. A respected Victorian fiction database lists Cyril A. Bennett as an author whose birth and death dates are unknown and notes that he "cannot be traced."
What is documented is a brief publishing record with London publisher T. Fisher Unwin. Bennett is credited with The Massage Case (1887) and A Cloud on St. Angelo (1888), both novels published in two volumes. Contemporary notice for A Cloud on St. Angelo suggests it was seen as a stronger follow-up to the earlier book, hinting at a writer with ambition and developing talent.
Because so little biographical information survives, Bennett stands as one of those intriguing literary ghosts of the Victorian era: present in catalogs and reviews, but largely absent from the historical record. For modern readers, that makes the work itself the best introduction.