ROBERT HUGH BENSON. — English convert, apologist, and novelist, born in Berkshire on 18 November 1871, died in London on 19 October 1914. He studied theology at Cambridge, at Trinity College. Initially an Anglican minister (his father, Edward White Benson, was Archbishop of Canterbury), he soon felt the inconsistency of Anglicanism and converted in 1903; in 1904 he was ordained a priest, and in 1911 he became a Roman prelate. A writer of rare fecundity, he was one of the most interesting yet most debated figures in the religious and literary history of contemporary England. A lively apologist and keen observer of modern psychology, as well as a refined artist, he was perhaps surpassed only by Newman.
Among his works, the following are particularly noteworthy: *Confession of a Convert* (London 1913), one of the most suggestive works of its kind; *The Lord of the World* (ib. 1907), an apocalyptic tale of the world’s last days, which aroused great enthusiasm but also sharp literary and theological controversies, to which he replied with another tale, *The Dawn of All* (ib. 1910), on the same subject. In other novels: *By What Authority* (ib. 1904), *The King’s Achievement* (ib. 1905), *The Queen’s Tragedy* (ib. 1906); *Come Rack! Come Rope!* (ib. 1912), in which B. recounts and defends the history of Christianity in the turbulent era of Henry VIII, Mary, and Elizabeth; in others, with great moral seriousness and striking effect, he seeks to glorify the *Ecclesia militans* or to demonstrate vividly, originally, and at times paradoxically, the absolute inadequacy of modern science and material progress to resolve the problems of life.
In his writings *Christ in the Church* (Italian trans. by A. To-vini, Brescia 1936) and *The Friendship of Christ* (Italian trans. by E. Francia, ib. 1931), he appears as an ardent, experienced, and original expositor of the doctrine of the Mystical Christ.