Humphry Francis Elliswas born in 1907 in Lincolnshire, and educated at Tonbridge and Magdalen College, Oxford. Following a year as assistant master at Marlborough school he began to write forPunchmagazine.In 1949 Ellis becamePunch's Literary and Deputy Editor, a post which he held until 1953. It was during this period that he developed the character of A. J. Wentworth, inspired by his experience as a schoolmaster.Punchcontinued to publish Ellis's work, though from 1954 he found a more lucrative market inThe New Yorker,where the Wentworth stories proved very popular.
'A splendid comic hero ... cannot fail to engage the sympathy of everyone who has ever sat in a classroom either as master or pupil ... Few books have made me laugh out loud quite so often.' Evening Standard 'I was often helpless with laughter. Not a book to be read in public.' The Oldie 'A truly comic invention.' The Guardian 'Masterly caricature.' Times Literary Supplement 'Wentworth turns out to be the hero of a work certain to be pigeon-holed as a minor classic by which people usually mean a classic more readable than the major kind ... a man Mr Pooter would regard with awe but nevertheless recognise as a brother.' Spectator 'A book of such hilarious nature that I had to give up reading it in public.' New Statesman 'One of the funniest books ever.' Sunday Express