Luther Benson

Luther Benson was an American writer from Indiana, active in the late 1800s. He is chiefly remembered for Fifteen Years in Hell: An Autobiography (1885), a firsthand account of alcoholism, collapse, and attempted reform that later found new readers through public-domain archives.

The book presents his life as a cautionary story, tracing years of drinking and their effects on his mind, work, and family. Contemporary catalog records for the book note that it was written within the Indiana asylum for the insane, which helps explain the memoir’s unusually intense and confessional tone.

Although reliable biographical details are scarce, Benson has been described in period references as a temperance lecturer as well as a writer. What keeps his name alive is the force of his memoir: direct, troubled, and unmistakably personal.